Danny Read online

  “I don’t want to marry you,” he blurted out. “I never said I did.”

  Her eyes went wide and hurt. “But you kissed me. You stroked my face. No one’s ever done that to me before.”

  “It doesn’t mean I want to marry you,” Ganymede said.

  “I’m a princess; you’re a prince.” Her breathy voice was rising. “You can’t say no!”

  Ganymede pulled into himself like a turtle at the hurt in her voice. He hated the idea of hurting someone else’s feelings and he hated saying no. The word tightened his throat and made him feel small and stupid. So instead of answering, he just sat and looked at her without saying anything at all.

  Phaedra stared at him with her enormous blue eyes. Then she got up and stormed away in a yellow cloud edged with purple. Ganymede watched her go, feeling like a complete asshole.

  That night, Minos threw a big banquet, Minoan style. That meant everyone lay on padded couches in front of low tables and ate course after course of stuff like peacock stuffed with pigeon, and peeled grapes, and dates with honey, and fresh-baked flat bread. To drink they had lots of wine, but it was watered down so you wouldn’t get drunk too fast. Only men were there—Minos’s four sons and some army generals and noblemen and famous athletes and guys like that. Women weren’t allowed at formal banquets, except to wait on the men. Ganymede sat at the high table with Minos, but Ilos managed to insert himself between his younger brother and the king. Ganymede was both nervous and relieved. Relieved because Phaedra wouldn’t be there. Nervous because Minos kept staring at him. For a moment, he wished he had a long scar puckering up his face like one of the generals did. If Ganymede weren’t so good-looking, Minos wouldn’t want him.

  The tables were arranged in a square, with a big space in the middle. Musicians played there for a while, and then acrobats jumped around like human springs, and then another guy came in and told a story about a man named Orpheus who traveled to the underworld to rescue his girlfriend. Almost no one paid attention to any of them except Ganymede, who watched every performance like a thirsty man watched a waterfall. He longed to be among them, jumping around and making people laugh. And if things got sticky, he could just pack up and move on to the next town.

  Several times, Minos spoke to Ilos, but Ganymede scarcely listened. More than once he heard his own name, but he steadfastly watched the performers instead of listening to his brother’s conversation. He didn’t want to hear what Ilos and Minos were saying. Way better to lose himself in acrobatics and songs and stories.

  At last, during a lull between performers, Minos slammed his wine goblet onto the table. The entire room fell silent.

  “These negotiations are pointless,” Minos boomed at Ilos. “Troy has steadfastly refused to give Crete the one thing it desires most. There is no point in discussing matters any further. Tomorrow morning, the Trojan ships can set sail for home.”

  Ilos’s face looked so pale, it could have been poured from milk. “Mighty Minos,” he said. “I beg you not to misunderstand. Troy is … perfectly willing to give you—give Crete—exactly what it desires.”

  “When?” Minos demanded.

  Ilos gave Ganymede a look that said I’m sorry a hundred times, and Ganymede swallowed his stomach. He knew what Ilos meant, and so did most of the men at the banquet. Several whispered behind their hands to their friends and nodded in Ganymede’s direction. Ganymede fought to keep his own expression stony, though he felt like one of the stuffed peacocks displayed on the high table.

  “Tomorrow,” Ilos said. “I believe you have called for a hunt, Majesty? Perhaps that would be a good time for Troy to demonstrate its good will.”

  “It would.” Minos’s eyes never left Ilos, never even flickered in Ganymede’s direction, but somehow that was worse. Not looking at Ganymede, talking about and around him instead, made him more of an object than anything else that had happened so far.

  “And the wedding?” Minos added.

  “At your leisure, Majesty,” Ilos replied in his smooth, powerful voice, and Ganymede felt the threads of fate bind him tighter than chains. He caught a flash of yellow in one of the doorways. Phaedra was watching, and she had a small, happy smile on her face. She blew Ganymede a kiss and withdrew into shadow.

  “Excellent!” Minos rubbed his palms together. “Then we’ll be able to sign the trade agreements right after the hunt, assuming everything turns out well.”

  “It will, your Majesty,” Ilos said. “You have the word of Troy.”

  Minos stared at Ilos for a long, long moment. Then he clapped his purple-tipped hands together once, twice, a third time. People began to realize he was applauding, and they quickly joined in. The banquet hall boomed with applause. Some of the men cheered. Ganymede looked at his brother, but Ilos wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  At last the clapping died down. “We should have some entertainment to celebrate,” Minos said. “Perhaps something from young Ganymede. I understand he’s quite talented.”

  All eyes turned to Ganymede. Ganymede felt his face grow hot.

  “If your Majesty desires,” Ilos replied. “Brother? Our host has a request.”

  Ganymede slowly got to his feet and made his way into the center of the hollow square made by the tables. Bare earth sprinkled with sawdust made up the floor. Torches burned in brackets to supply flickering light. They made the air in the banquet hall hot and stuffy, and they smelled like pine. Sweat trickled down Ganymede’s back and through his armpits. Minos gave Ganymede a small smile that reminded him of the one Phaedra had just given him, and he wanted to turn his back and run all the way to the sea, flee across the salty water to the familiar halls of Troy.

  Instead, he set his shoulders and reached for determination. They wanted a show? Ganymede would give them a show. For all he knew, it would be the last time he’d ever be allowed to perform.

  He bowed to Minos and pretended to stumble, then turned the gesture into a forward roll. He came swiftly upright with a surprised look on his face that made the banqueters burst into laughter. This brought him to one corner of the performing area, so he turned, ran four steps to gain momentum and leaped. Ganymede tucked up, turned two somersaults in mid-air, and twisted around to land in the opposite corner facing the way he had come. Startled shouts of praise and encouragement followed him. He ran again, leaped, landed on his hands, turned a cartwheel, changed it into a back flip, landed on his hands, then continued into a roll that brought him into a sitting position. Palms flat on the dirt floor, he pushed himself slowly upward, legs straight out. He held them there, demonstrating to everyone that he had the strength and control to do it. Showing off, but Minos had asked. Minos and the others applauded. Ilos stared, and Ganymede grinned. His brother had never seen Ganymede perform like this. It had all been secret until now.

  With an easy flick, Ganymede gyrated his body, moving legs and torso beneath him while his hands held him up. He had to lift them out of the way, one at a time, almost faster than the eye could follow, to let his body pass by. Ganymede danced like this for several seconds, building up speed, spiraling his legs higher and higher like a waterspout, until he ended in a free handstand straight as a hunting spear. A cheer broke across the onlookers, and golden pride swelled through him.

  Here, performing for an appreciative audience, Ganymede felt in his element. In control. His body did what he wanted, went where he ordered. Flowed. Muscles rippled like water with every movement. Every eye was on him, and this time he loved it. Here, his looks didn’t matter. What mattered was how he moved, and Ganymede knew how to move.

  He dropped from the handstand into a full split, his legs completely straight, then leaned down and, his arms spread wide, placed his palms on the ground and slowly, carefully, pushed himself into a wide-stance handstand, and held it. This was harder than a regular handstand because Ganymede’s arms were spread out instead of straight up and down, and his arms trembled slightly with the effort, but his stance didn’t waver. One of the tumblers from earlier in the
evening was standing in the back of the hall. She caught Ganymede’s eye and nodded approval, one gymnast to another. Ganymede felt he could have happily died right then.

  The performance continued. He twisted, leaped, spun, paused, and leaped again. Delighted cheers and bursts of applause trailed after every move. Finally, he built up momentum, flung himself into two back handsprings, and leapt into a high back flip. Ganymede landed precisely, hands high above his head. The banqueter hall exploded with the banqueters’ approval. They clapped and whistled and chanted his name. Ganymede stood in the center of the square, flushed and panting, drinking in the shouted praise. Ilos still looked amazed. Minos was clapping as hard as anyone, his fingers a purple-tipped blur, but Ganymede let himself pretend, for a while anyway, that he wasn’t here for Minos. For a few diamond moments, everyone was here for him.

  Eventually the applause died down. Ganymede bowed once more to Minos and exited quickly, before Minos could summon him back to the table.

  Some time later, Ilos found Ganymede staring out the window in the rooms they shared in Minos’s stone palace. It was way past midnight—in those days, that meant halfway to dawn—and only a few lights glowed like shy fireflies in the city far below. Cool night air breezed around the chilly stones.

  “That was incredible,” Ilos said. “Where did you learn all that?”

  “Lots of places,” Ganymede replied with a casual shrug, though he was secretly pleased that he’d managed to impress his big brother. “And I practiced a lot while I was out with the herds. Not much to do when you’re with a flock of cows.”

  “You were great. Father would have been impressed.”

  There was a long pause as both brothers stood side by side and looked out the window. Ganymede wished the moment would last forever, but he knew it couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry about Phaedra,” Ilos said at last.

  Ganymede said nothing.

  “We need the agreement, and Minos holds all the bargaining power,” Ilos continued. “He said he wants you for his daughter. I know she’s only a second-born daughter, but Minos has four sons of his own anyway, so you wouldn’t inherit any— ”

  “I don’t care about that!” Ganymede snarled. The moment was destroyed, and all his previous fear and anger came rushing back. “He doesn’t want me for Phaedra, no matter what he says. He wants me for … for himself.”

  Ilos paused. “I know.” Another silence. “Look, Ganymede, without this trade agreement, Troy will have a hard time for years and years. People will go hungry and cold. I need you—Troy needs you—to do this. I wouldn’t ask you if there were any other choice.”

  “Ask. You mean I have a choice?” Ganymede said bitterly.

  “You could publicly refuse Minos,” Ilos told him. “Bluntly tell him you won’t marry Phaedra. As your older brother and Father’s representative, I could force you into it, but …” He let the sentence trail off. “Ganymede, will you do this? Please?”

  Ganymede looked at his older brother, the boy—now man—he had looked up to all his life. The guy who would one day be his king. The person he knew better than anyone else. And Ganymede knew that if he said no, Ilos would go along with it, pull out of negotiations with Minos and try to find someone else to bargain with.

  But it was Ilos who was asking him. Ganymede really wanted to say no, despite the high stakes. He started to, in fact. Then the word died in his mouth. He couldn’t say that word to Ilos and watch disappointment make his brother’s face heavy. He’d rather bear the pain of whatever Minos had in mind.

  “All right,” Ganymede said. “I’ll do it.”

  Ilos hugged him hard at the shoulder for a moment, then dropped his hand and peered into the night beside his brother, pretending to look for something so he didn’t have to see Ganymede’s face. “In the morning,” he said, “late morning, Minos is going hunting with some of his men. You need to go, too. Minos will make sure he gets separated from the group. So should you. He wants to … catch you.”

  “Sure,” Ganymede said. “Whatever.”

  For a long time they stood side by side, staring into the darkness, trying to see the shape of tomorrow.

  In the morning, Ganymede couldn’t eat. He tried twice, and threw up both times. He stayed in his and Ilos’s rooms until nearly noon, when a servant came to announce that the hunt was about to begin. Ganymede laced up his sandals, buckled his knife to his belt, and trotted down the twisted staircases to the main courtyard of Minos’s palace, his expression proud. He was a prince of Troy and he would act like one. Storm clouds were piling up in the southwest like mountains made of dirty cotton, and Ganymede eyed them warily.

  The courtyard was huge, almost as big as a football field, and set with bumpy cobblestones. Men in light tunics and sandals similar to Ganymede’s milled about, talking and laughing. Most of them carried spears and knives. Hunting dogs, sleek and fast, bounded around the hunters barking their excitement. A handful of women stood at the edge of yard, watching the men. Phaedra was among them, and she waved at Ganymede. He gave her a polite wave back. It was hard for him to comprehend that in a few days, he would be her husband—and Minos would be his father-in-law. Phaedra made as if to enter the courtyard to come talk to Ganymede, and Ganymede quickly turned away as if he were looking for someone else. He didn’t really want to talk to her right now. Phaedra stopped, looked confused, then stepped back to rejoin the women. Ganymede saw Ilos in the crowd and acted like this was the person he’d been looking for.

  “Where are the chariots?” Ganymede asked, more for something to say than any real need to know.

  “Minos called a foot hunt,” Ilos said just as a servant approached with a pair of short spears for Ganymede. “The beaters are already out.”

  He meant that a bunch of slaves were out in the bushes making noise to scare the animals out of hiding, making it easier for the hunters to find something to hit. It was cheating, really, but it was kind of embarrassing for a king’s hunt to come back empty-handed.

  A flicker of lightning struck among the distant clouds, making them look purple for a split-second, and a baby boom of thunder rolled across the hills of Crete. The air felt strangely heavy, like it was weighted down with eagle feathers.

  “The coming storm adds excitement,” Minos called, and Ganymede saw him among the crowd for the first time. He looked very different. Both his hair and his beard were braided and bound up to keep them out of the way, and instead of his purple robe, he wore a rough brown tunic cinched with a leather belt. The belt held a knife and short bronze sword. No other hunter had a sword, Ganymede noticed. Minos also held a pair of spears, and three lean gray hunting dogs remained at his side. He saw Ganymede and nodded. Ganymede gripped his own spears and nodded back. The sick feeling roiled around in his stomach.

  “Are you ready?” Ilos murmured, and Ganymede heard the extra meaning in his words.

  “I’ll do what needs to be done,” Ganymede said quietly. “I’m a prince of Troy.”

  Ilos clapped Ganymede on the shoulder, and a louder peal of thunder rumbled at the horizon. One of the men blew a horn as if in answer. A priestess of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, sprinkled water in a wide arc over the men to bless them. She called upon the goddess to bring game to the men and keep them safe, and she promised an appropriate sacrifice from the hunted animals if Artemis would give her blessing. Ganymede sent up a prayer of his own, silently begging the goddess to help him.

  When the priestess finished, Minos led the hunters down a long flight of stairs cut into the earth before the palace. High hills and small mountains wrinkled the island of Crete all the way down to the sea, which spread out like a silken blue blanket to the north. Ganymede shaded his eyes and gazed out at it. Far over the water he could make out the slope of Thera, a tall mountain that sat amid three islands north of Crete. The islands were part of Minos’s kingdom, of course. Beyond them lay still more islands, broken and scattered in the Aegean Sea like crumbs spat from the mouths of volcanoes. And sti
ll farther north lay Troy. Home. A place Ganymede would never see again. How long would it take him to think of Crete as home? Would it ever happen?

  “A prize,” Minos announced at the bottom of the stairs, “to the first catch, to the largest catch, and to whoever brings in the most game by weight.”

  A cheer went up from the hunters. Ganymede forced himself to raise his spear and join in, though he wanted to vomit. He hated himself for that, was getting sick and tired of feeling ready to barf all the time. Was this what his life was going to be like from now on?

  Minos gave Ganymede a long look. “Now we seek our game!”

  The horn sounded again, thunder grumbled a third time, and the men scattered in all directions, their spears raised above their heads. Ilos gave Ganymede a small push, and Ganymede realized he’d been standing there, unmoving. He jogged away toward a random patch of trees no one else had chosen and threw a glance over his shoulder. Minos was watching him, arms crossed, dogs still at his side. A rabbit screamed a high, shrill death cry, and a distant cheer went up. First blood. Then Minos ran in Ganymede’s direction with a speed and grace that surprised Ganymede. The dogs streaked ahead of him. Ganymede turned and ran into the trees.

  There was no trail, only tall trees and soft ferns. Ganymede ran light and fast at first, then he remembered that Minos was supposed to catch him, and he slowed down. Clouds spilled across the sky, blotting out the blue. Ahead, he saw a place where three trees formed a copse. It would be a good place for Minos to find him. Already he was pushing his emotions down, readying himself. All he had to do was close his eyes and let Minos do some shit for a few minutes. How bad could it be?

  A soft snarl made him glance behind. Minos’s hunting dogs were running ahead of the king, who had entered the woods. The dogs had bared their teeth and their whip-like tails remained rigid as they ran. They didn’t pant or wag. A little fear chilled Ganymede, even as the temperature around him fell. Minos ran forward as well, his face more serious than Ganymede had ever seen it. What the hell was going on? Ganymede turned and made the copse in a few more steps. He darted in among the trio of trees, then forced himself to stop and wait. His heart pounded like it was trying to escape his ribs as he braced himself against a rough tree trunk, awaiting fate.