HYACINTHUS

Chapter Thirteen

MY FATHER'S MEN found me at dawn, happily asleep in a flower meadow by the river.

They had been worried out of their minds. Although I was not the heir to the throne, my father wouldn't easily forget the embarassment of losing a son of his during hunting.

Even more, I was supposed to be by his side, and he wouldn't have managed to keep an eye on me.

After there had been no sign of me returning to the clearing where we left our Trojan horses, my father ordered my brothers and the few courtmen who went hunting with us to split up and find me.

They had feared for the worst, my father told me. The thick forest wasn't devoid of danger; various beasts, from black wolves big like bears to green snakes as thick as the Eurotas slumbered there during the day and awoke at nighttime.

Not even to speak of the magical creatures that hid up on the tree crowns or down below the ground: strixes that would eagerly suck my blood, lamias that would crawl out of the river bed, and even laestrygones, terrible man-eating giants, that crossed the deep west sea and arrived to our lands.

So when they saw me, amidst a harmless field of dandelions and daisies, they were both relieved and terribly angered.

My father scolded me for my "irresponsibility" and "carelessness". He told me he felt as if his heart would stop out of fear when they had searched the whole forest in vain.

How would he face Minos, his ally, friend and father of his son's bride, and tell him his son was lost to the entities of nature?

I quickly realized his worry was not about me; it was rather about how he was going to come across.

And now, he was both grateful his pride would be preserved, and angry thinking of the possibility of it being wounded.

To punish me, he knew he couldn't lock me up in my room; who knows what I might have done to prevent it? All you need to know is that I wouldn't regret his murder one second.

So, he gave me the silent treatment; he didn't address me at all. I could feel the questioning looks of my siblings wander to me from time to time.

I knew my brothers and sisters were happy at the news that I was going to leave Sparta.

Argalus would get another candidate for the throne out of the way; Cynortas would beget the title of the strongest of the land again (I had non-willingly humiliated him at a running race). There would be more food left for Harpalus and Hegesandre.

Only Daphne was sad that I was going to leave, and only Daphne made me feel sad for my departure too. I felt an odd sense of guilt everytime she spoke of Crete, because I never told her of my true intentions.

"It's the land of everlasting Sun", she said and sighed looking into the distance, surely imagining long sandy shores bathing in eternal golden light. "It will be beneficial to you. I'm even a bit jealous. I had always wanted to see the sea."

The sea was truly an obsession of Daphne's. Because our palace was quite far away, she soothed that desire by regular walks by the river. It was as if she felt some sort of kinship with the water; it was pure and pleasing to the eye, and yet, it flowed further with unexpected hardiness, running deep, crashing along the rocks in the storm.

"It must be that you can't wait to go to Crete", she said, her face lighting up with a sisterly smile. "I think they'll welcome you much more warmly than here."

I nodded, feigning a smile too.

Who cares about Crete? It was not meant to be.

I didn't, even an ounce, regret my decision to abandon every path leading to that island.

No matter how vividly blue the sea there was, how deliciously salty the air was, how strong the evening wind and how bright the morning Sun was, my path was to go to the west, to a cave only two knew of.

The days passed so slowly I thought I must have somehow angered Cronos, the god of Time, and that he must have slowed it down to excrutiating stillness.

I had this deep-lying fear that something might happen and sabotage my plans; that my father would send some kind of messenger instead of going himself, or perhaps catch on to my secretive mannerisms, and make sure guards followed my every footstep, anticipating something of the like of the thing I was going to do.

I was going to run away.

Of course, this wasn't the first time I dreamt of leaving the palace, and for good too.

My years of imprisonment left me yearning for wilderness, for land unexplored, for cities where strange languages are spoken, for the vast unknown that was the world.

Never had my intentions been so clear, never had I known with absolute certainty that was this, that there was no coming back this time.

The string of fate that attached me to my father's palace had already been cut, and only a few inches of thread were left before it inevitably ran out.

A month, I consoled myself. Thirty times two meals a day. Breakfast and supper. I lived from one day to the other; it organized my mind somehow, to only think about what I was going to eat.

The only one who caught on to something was Eunaide. When I asked her, three days before my father's departure, to find me a rather large, endurable pouch, preferably of leather, she frowned and stopped cleaning the tub of the bath where I had found her working.

"What in the name of Zeus do you need that for?"

I bit my lip; I couldn't tell her. It's not that I didn't trust her, just... The words couldn't get over my tongue.

"The walls have ears", I said criptically. She lifted her gaze, not at the flawless white marble walls, but at my face.

Her next few words were quieter than a whisper; she mouthed them, her eyes wide.

"You are leaving."

I nodded.

"The wedding? What with it?"

I shook my head.

We looked at each other. She, an old servant, had certainly more experience than me, a foolish young Prince. She certainly considered my plan to be impulsive, an act of juvenile folly.

"Come here", she whispered.

I did as she told me, and crouched to be at her level.

Her slap didn't hurt my cheek as much as it hurt my feelings. I didn't feel any anger rise, any blood boil. I just stared at my feet in shame, like a child who disobeyed his mother.

That slap was motherly too. It wasn't violent, even rather meek. It was not intented to hurt me, but to teach me that what I had done was wrong.

"That's what you get for not telling me, Hyacinthus."

I, tall, strong, now on the brink of becoming a man, felt tears rise up to my eyes, out of an unexplainable reason.

Those tears began flowing when Eunaide's face softened, her eyes warm and full of care; she rose on her tiptoes, hugged me, and said:

"Good luck, wherever the Fates may lead you. I am your faithful servant, even if just in spirit."

She let go rather quickly, having heard footsteps in the corridor. I stumbled a few steps back, and turned my face to wipe my treacherous tears off.

The footsteps continued, and then faded away. Someone must have passed by, but not decided to enter.

I looked at Eunaide again. She was scrubbing the floor dilligently, as if our conversation had never happened.

Yet, I knew she would fulfill my request.

She was someone I could count on.

In three days, I will lose her and Daphne, the only two people in the world who had never and who will never, ever harm me.

And much later, when Thanatos will come to reap my soul, I will bitterly regret leaving them.