The black sail lay along the quay, and the mothers would not step across it.
Theseus went around them to the ship. Six young men waited beside the gangplank, with seven young women gathered close behind. One girl held a small bundle against her chest. Her mother kept opening it to put something more inside, then closing it again, though there was no room left.
Theseus took his place among them.
His father caught him by the arm.
“Come away.”
Aegeus had spoken quietly. The rowers were close enough to hear, and a king could not plead before his own people. But his fingers tightened when Theseus did not move.
“Six men,” Theseus said. “They need a seventh.”
“They will choose one.”
“Then they have chosen.”
Beyond the harbour mouth, the sea shone without a mark upon it. Somewhere across that brightness lay Crete, and beneath its king’s keeping a house whose passages brought every traveller deeper in. There Minos kept the Minotaur, with a bull’s head upon a man’s body. Seven young men and seven young women went to feed it. This was the third company Athens had prepared.
Theseus looked at the girl’s bundle. Her mother had stopped trying to close it.
“If I kill it,” he said, “there need not be another ship.”
“And if you cannot find your way out?”
He had no answer to that. Aegeus saw it, and for a moment the hand upon his arm almost drew him back.
Then Theseus stepped onto the gangplank.
The king let him go. He called for a white sail, and when it came he followed his son aboard and laid it beside the mast. He smoothed one fold with his palm.
“If you live, raise this before you reach home. Let me see it while you are still far off.”
“I will.”
Aegeus kept his hand on the cloth until the sailors needed the space. Then he went ashore, and the black sail rose above his head.
Ariadne’s Thread
In Crete, the sun struck white from the courtyard walls. Theseus stood with his companions while Minos’s men counted them. No one asked their names.
A young woman watched from a doorway. When the count was finished, she was still watching him.
That evening she came to the room where the Athenians waited. Theseus had been studying the narrow opening above the door, though even if he could reach it he would have gained nothing but another court full of guards. At her approach he stepped away from the wall.
“I am Ariadne,” she said. “Minos is my father.”
He glanced past her. The passage was empty.
“Has he sent you?”
“No.”
She had a lamp in one hand. He could see where her other hand pressed against her skirt to keep it still.
“They say you came willingly.”
“I came to kill the Minotaur.”
“And after that?”
There was his father’s question again, waiting on the other side of the sea.
Theseus looked towards the darkness beyond her lamp.
“I must bring them out.”
Ariadne lowered her voice.
“I can help you. But if I do, I cannot remain here.”
She looked directly at him then. She had watched him in the courtyard and had come to him herself; whatever had brought her through that door, she had no one standing behind her now.
“Take me to Athens,” she said. “Swear that I will go with you, and that you will marry me.”
Theseus took her free hand.
“I swear it.”
She held his gaze a moment longer before she drew away.
At dawn she returned with a ball of thread.
He looked from it to her face. It was small enough to hide in a closed hand.
“Daedalus built the Labyrinth,” she said. “I asked him how a man could leave it. Fasten one end at the entrance. Let the thread run out behind you. When you turn back, follow it.”
Theseus drew a length between his fingers. It was ordinary thread. He had expected a secret door, perhaps, or a name to call in the darkness. This could be broken by a careless pull.
“Keep it loose at the corners,” Ariadne said.
He wound the little length back onto the ball.
“And you?”
“I will be ready.”
The door of the Labyrinth opened into cool air. Behind Theseus, his companions huddled in the daylight. Far inside, something scraped against stone.
He knelt at the entrance and secured the end of the thread. Then he stood, opened his hand around the ball, and went in.
The House of Turns
For a little while he could hear the others breathing.
He turned once, and the sound faded. He turned again, and the entrance light was gone.
A pale shaft fell from an opening high above him. It lit a wall and the foot of a stair that led down to three passages. Theseus chose the middle one. The thread slipped over his palm.
He tried to hold the turns in his head. Left at the stair. Right beyond the sloping floor. Left again where the wall narrowed. But the next passage brought him to a stair so like the first that he stopped.
The thread lay behind him in a long, unbroken line.
He went on.
The air grew warmer. Somewhere ahead came a slow breath, then the scrape again. Theseus closed his hand too quickly and felt the thread tighten. He loosened his fingers. Around the last corner, the passage widened.
The Minotaur stood at the far end.
Its horns caught the thin light from above. Beneath them, a broad muzzle lifted. Its shoulders were a man’s shoulders, but so heavy that Theseus could scarcely see the wall behind them. One hand rested against the stone.
It took the hand away.
Theseus set the ball of thread beside the passage mouth.
The creature came towards him, slowly at first. He backed into the open space, away from the thread. Its breath filled the chamber. Then its head dropped, and the horns swept forward.
Theseus sprang aside. One horn passed close enough to catch the cloth at his shoulder. He struck with his fist, felt the weight of the head beneath his knuckles, and was hurled backwards by the creature’s arm.
Stone met his back. For an instant he could draw no breath.
The Minotaur turned.
Theseus pushed away from the wall before it could pin him there. He was close now, too close for the horns to swing freely. He caught one arm and drove his fist into the creature again. Its hand closed on his shoulder. His knees bent under the weight.
He saw nothing but the dark hide beside his face. Somewhere beyond it lay the passage mouth, the small ball of thread, thirteen people waiting for him to return.
He braced his feet and struck again.
The grip loosened. Theseus tore free, stepped in before the head could lower, and struck once more with all the strength he had left.
The Minotaur stumbled. Its hand searched the wall and missed.
It fell heavily at his feet.
Theseus waited, bent forward, his hands hanging open. The creature did not rise. The long breath went out of it, and no other followed.
For a while there was only the sound of his own breathing.
Then he turned towards the way he had come.
There were two openings in that wall.
He looked at the nearer one. It seemed right. He could almost remember stepping through it. He took a pace towards it, then stopped.
Low beside the other opening lay the thread.
He knelt and picked it up.
The ball shook in his hands as he began to wind. At the first corner the thread caught against the stone. He went back, lifted it gently free, and continued. He no longer tried to remember the way. He followed the pale strand across the floors, around the turns, past the stairs that looked alike.
At last a voice called from ahead.
Theseus tried to answer, but his throat was dry. He called again.
Footsteps hurried towards him. A face appeared, and another. Hands took his arms. Beyond them the open door was full of sky.
“Is it dead?” someone asked.
“Yes.”
The girl with the bundle began to cry. She pressed her hand over her mouth to keep the sound from carrying.
Ariadne was waiting. Theseus showed her the thread, wound badly now, loose loops slipping from the ball. She closed his fingers over it and took his other hand.
They left Crete together in the night. When the ship drew clear of land, the Athenians crouched along its sides and listened for pursuit. The oars dipped and rose. No shout followed them across the water.
Ariadne sat beside Theseus. He could feel her shivering, though the air was warm. He put his cloak around her shoulders, and she held it closed at her throat.
Behind them, the coast became a low dark line and disappeared.
The Sail Home
They came to Naxos and rested there.
The rescued young people slept in the shade above the beach. Theseus sat with Ariadne near the water, letting the sea wash the stiffness from his hands. She took the thread from him and patiently began to put the tangled loops in order.
He watched her fingers move. In Athens there would be a room for her, a place at his father’s table. He tried to imagine telling Aegeus that a little ball of thread had brought him home.
Before they could leave the island, Dionysus came for her.
Theseus saw him on the shore, a stranger until he drew near. Then there was no mistaking him for a man. Ariadne stood with the thread still in her hand.
Theseus rose.
Dionysus reached for her hand. Ariadne looked back at Theseus. The thread slipped from her fingers and fell between the stones.
“Theseus.”
He came forward, but the god had already turned with her along the shore. Theseus followed. He stumbled where the rocks rose from the sand, caught himself, and called to her. Her skirt vanished beyond the bend.
He went after them over the stones. Beyond the curve of the shore, sunlight lay across an empty stretch of sand. He climbed higher and called her name. The water broke white below him. There was no answer.
When he returned to the ship, his cloak lay where she had folded it.
The Athenians were ready to sail. They watched him come aboard, and moved aside to let him pass. He sat down with the cloak across his knees.
All the way towards Athens he listened to the water running along the hull. When someone spoke, he raised his head, then lowered it again. The white sail remained folded beneath the gear beside the mast.
At last the coast of Attica appeared. The young people crowded forward. One began to laugh. Another stood on a bench and waved, though they were too far out for anyone ashore to see a hand.
Above them, the black sail filled with wind.
On the Acropolis, Aegeus had been watching the sea. He saw the ship before the people below began to gather at the harbour. He searched above its hull for a patch of white.
The vessel came nearer.
Still the sail was black.
Aegeus turned from the men beside him and cast himself from the height. They reached the edge too late.
Below, the ship came safely in.
Theseus rose at the sound of the landing ropes. The girl stepped onto the quay with her bundle, and her mother caught her so fiercely that it fell between them. All around him, hands were reaching for the people he had brought back.
He looked through the crowd for his father.
A man came down towards the harbour, walking fast until he saw Theseus. Then he stopped.
Theseus went to him.
The man looked past his shoulder, up at the sail.
Only then did Theseus remember.
He left the ship and climbed through the city. Behind him, the rescued were still being carried into their homes. When he reached his father, he knelt and took the hand that had held him back beside the gangplank.
It lay still in his own.