The White Bull by Fred Saberhagen Read Free Book Online Page A

course you do."
    "Daedalus, who is this White Bull we hear so much about, who wants to educate us all? Is he a real god, or what?"
    "Most people think so. I will try to explain about him later. Meanwhile, these officers here will help your shipmates on their way to find your quarters. What of the ship's crew? Are they returning to Athens at once, or—"
    "Ship and crew are mine. They stay here in Crete till I tell 'em different."
    "I see." And I turned my head to shoot a warning glance at the officer who had been ready to make an issue of proper attire and demeanor for arriving students; and that officer, now grateful for my intervention, nodded.
    Thus our ascent from the harbor at Heraklion began. Immediately it turned into an informal procession, led by Theseus and myself walking together. Close behind us paced the two court officials, and just behind them a small honor guard of soldiers. This honor guard was sometimes accompanied and sometimes followed by the remaining thirteen new arrivals, who looked about them uncertainly and no doubt were confused by the lack of ceremony here. The seven girls, I was certain, would be already whispering among themselves at the evident freedom of the Cretan women they could observe on every side, females who appeared eminently respectable except for the bold way they strode about, casually unescorted, looking strange men in the face and aiming their bared nipples proudly at the world.
All very well
, I wanted to caution the young Athenians;
but don't luxuriate in freedom yet. Wait until you get to school
.
    At a little distance behind this pedestrian procession of ours, the gaily decorated wagon rumbled along, loud with its continued emptiness.
    The pair of horses pulling it uphill looked grateful that it was not loaded with fourteen people. The bright paint and colorful cloth streamers of the wagon jarred with the mock-mourning of the people walking just ahead of it.
    After we had climbed half the distance through the town, I gently suggested to my companion that the imitation mourning would really be in especially bad taste at court today. A real funeral was going to take place in the afternoon.
    The tall youth blinked. "Someone in Minos's family?"
    "No, not that bad. One who would have been your fellow student had he lived; in his third year at school. A Lapith. But still."
    "Oh." Theseus slowed his long but slightly wobbly strides. He rubbed a hand across his blackened forehead, looking at the fingers afterward. "Now what do I do?"
    "A good question. Let us not, after all, take you to see Minos quite immediately." I turned and with a gesture called one of the court officials forward, saying to him; "Arrange some quarters for Prince Theseus that are better than those customarily given the new students, and conduct him to those quarters now. He and his shipmates will need some time to make themselves presentable before they see the king. Meanwhile I will immediately seek out Minos myself and offer explanations."
    The officer's face, and the quickness of his salute, showed his relief.
     
    "Daedalus." King Minos's voice in greeting was pleasant, and his manner businesslike as he welcomed his chief engineer. I had found the monarch in a pleasant, white-walled room where, at the moment, the royal tax-gatherers were arguing over a number of scrolls they had unrolled upon stone tables and pinned in place with small stone weights. In one direction an open colonnade gave a fine view of startlingly blue sea and blank horizon; in the other, Mount Ida, almost snowless now in summer, crowned the skyline of the inland peaks.
    Minos, despite the evident dispute among his financiers, was in a good mood. "How can I help you today, workman? How goes your effort on the rock-throwing machine?" One of the tasks that he had recently assigned to me was that of trying to create with known materials a machine capable of duplicating some of the feats performed by the Bronze Man, Talus. Today I could only shake