The White Bull Read Free Page B

the morning." The king got to his feet, frowning at his wine cup as if surprised to see that it was empty.
     
    That night I slept snugly, installed with my woman and my child in quarters even finer than those we had enjoyed in Athens, when I had been at the peak of my favor at the Athenian court.
    Kalliste and Icarus were both exhausted, and they were still fast asleep when I arose shortly after dawn. Three or four slaves had already been assigned to serve us, and these servants came in at first light to introduce themselves, bowing and scraping and bringing new clothing, gifts from King Minos for their new master and his woman.
    One of these slaves was a calm and rather deaf old man, another a dull boy. I have forgotten their names. The third was a red-haired barbarian girl of about sixteen, who, in response to my curious questions, told me that she had been brought as a small child from some distant land to the far north. She was called "Thorhild," a barbaric sound indeed.
    I questioned Thorhild further while I splashed my face with water. "Is His Majesty still sleeping? I was to speak with him this morning."
    She was moving about the apartment, cleaning and arranging energetically. "Sir, His Majesty has been up for half an hour, and has gone, as he often does, to a shrine by the sea, to offer sacrifice to Poseidon."
    "Then let me hurry after him. I wish to appear alert and ready to serve him."
    One of my servants provided me with a mount, and another informed me as to which path I should take. The shrine was on a rugged crag overlooking the sea, a brief walk along the coast from Heraklion. I left my horse, borrowed from the king's stables, with the man who was holding the king's own mount, and walked on slowly toward the place where Minos was standing with only three or four attendants.
    A young spotted bull was about to be sacrificed, and, looking down at the sea, I decided that those making the offering were probably waiting for what they judged to be the moment of high tide. While gulls wheeled and cried above, waves mumbled and spoke around the rocks below, a voice-like roar resulting from the recurrent drainage of water between two sharp angles of rock. A man determined to hear some message from a god, I thought, could hardly fail to perceive words in that noise.
    On a crag overlooking the tidal vortex of the waves, two priests held the bullock bellowing, while the king with an ancient obsidian knife managed with three stabs to open one of the great blood vessels in the side of the beast's neck. I observed this bloodiness with respectful attention, but mild distaste. Nor did it appear to me that Minos was enjoying himself, but he pressed on with the butchery. When it was done he accepted a white towel on which to wipe his hands, then submitted to a more thorough cleansing. One helper provided more towels, while another poured water into a silver basin.
    Turning his head at last, he saw me watching and called to me: "I do what you see me do here, Daedalus, because of an old prophecy. You've probably heard it."
    I approached the royal presence respectfully. "I have heard one, sire, about a bull, a gift from the gods, coming to this island from the sea."
    Minos nodded. "I suppose no one on the island any longer really expects the sea to cast up a white bull on our shores. Now it's enough for the people that the king discharge his obligation to Poseidon by a regular performance of the sacrifice." And now the dead bullock was being pushed into the sea, which I had never known to be significantly reddened by any amount of blood, animal or human.
    Not knowing what comment I ought to make, I remained silent, until the king threw down the towels, which were no longer white, and started to talk about the plumbing system he wished to have.
     
    After conversing on that subject for half an hour with the king while we rode unhurriedly back to the House of the Double Axe, I spent another hour in a preliminary survey of the present