The White Bull Read online

  "I filled out an incredible number of forms last time. Since you want me as a student so badly, I am surprised that you have thrown them all away."

  "Whe-ther the previous forms have been thrown a-way is ir-rel-e-vant, Dae-dal-us… and when the forms have been pre-pared, you will be ad-min-is-tered some place-ment tests."

  This only made me protest the more. "I have also taken those tests before. Surely there is no need for me to waste my time on that again."

  But of course my protests availed nothing. Filling out new copies of the old forms, and taking the old tests over again—they were as incomprehensible as I remembered them—did indeed consume a considerable amount of time. It was afternoon before I found myself walking into a classroom where Theseus and Phaedra were sitting side by side, surrounded by some fifteen or sixteen other young folk from around the civilized world, every edge of the Mediterranean.

  The royal pair had evidently heard of my re-enrollment and were not surprised to see me; the prince looked openly relieved. I took my place on a rear bench, endured some curious glances at my grizzled locks, and waited, feeling gnarled and old and incongruous, until the Bull himself entered and began to teach.

  There was very little preamble. "Yes-ter-day we be-gan up-on the sci-ence of ge-og-ra-phy," the Bull said to the assemblage of students seated before him. "To-day we will app-roach it for the first time in a new way."

  And it was soon apparent to me that this was not going to be like any kind of instruction that I had ever encountered before, in the Bull's school or elsewhere. The Bull began to do something—how, I could not tell—directly to our thoughts, and to our eyes. I knew that I and my fellow students were still sitting on our benches, and now and then, with all the imperfection of vision in a cloudy glass, I could still catch a glimpse of the Bull still standing in the front of the classroom before us. But far more vividly than these glimpses, there came an inward vision that dominated all else, with the sudden clarity and precision of objects seen in a flash of lightning.

  On the one hand I understood that my body still sat in the classroom. And on the other it seemed to me that I and my fellow students together had sprung upward somehow from the ground, and that we were flying at more than arrow-speed into the blue. The Labyrinth, the school, and the whole House of the Double Axe had dropped clear away. In one direction, downslope, I could see the harbor of Heraklion, and in the opposite direction, to the south, the sharp hills rising.

  The speed with which we seemed to rise was quite insane, divine, miraculous. Before I had ceased to hold my breath, my field of vision encompassed the whole fair isle of Crete. Even its snow-capped mountains were dwindling and flattening beneath me now, becoming almost on a level with the fields and groves and villages, while other islands to the north, large cone-topped Thera and a score of smaller specks, popped into view. The sky and air were very clear.

  Our mad ascent toward the uppermost vault of sky continued. By now my field of vision encompassed even the eastern and western tips of the isle of Crete. To the northwest I could see mainland Greece, to the north innumerable islands, the farthest of them shrouded in cloud, and to the south the very rim of Africa beyond the sea. I uttered frantic words, then bit my lip to keep from crying out aloud. Recoiling from the vision in momentary terror, I shut my eyes, clutching at the bench on which I sat. It was not only the strangeness of what I saw that terrified me, but the simultaneous conviction that the vision represented truth.

  The experience was proving too much for some of my fellow students. Around me there were louder outcries than my own, and faintings—if I tried hard to externalize my own vision again I could see the falling bodies and the prostrate students on the classroom floor.

  Somewhat more slowly than it had been imposed upon us, the vision faded.

  Why did the White Bull do that to us? was for a short time the only clear thought my mind could formulate. Then I thought: Why, there at the highest place near heaven, I was able to see the roundness of the earth.

  "Dae-dal-us?" The Bull, in the front of the classroom, was calling on me, though I was not aware that any question had been asked.

  Around me, the haggard faces of my fellow students, most of them now nearly recovered from their experience, turned in my direction as I got to my feet. "Sir?"

  "Please tell the class what you man-aged to learn from that pre-sen-ta-tion."

  I answered slowly. "I have learned, sir, something about the school." But that would not be the desired answer. "And something about the world around the school." I paused. "That world is more of one piece than I ever thought it was."

  I thought the Bull was pleased. He made some noncommittal comment, and the class, showing either an unexpected resilience or an amazing numbness, passed on to a much more mundane lesson in geography. Some of that day's routine lesson was new to me, and I supposed I might find the information useful someday.

  Eventually the first day of my renewed enrollment was over, leaving me rather more to think about than I had expected. In due time the second and third days had passed as well. Throughout these days rather ordinary lessons were presented to my class, by the Bull himself or one of his teaching staff of human graduate students, not in accordance with any obvious plan. The drama of that first soaring mental flight was not repeated. Most of the information presented appeared on scrolls, hand-copied by some previous class of students. There were wax tablets, too.

  And then there were the written tests. I believe I can still remember a typical example.

  QUESTION: The world inhabited by men, women, and children is:

  A: Bigger than the island of Crete.

  B: Approximately spherical in shape.

  C: In need of cultivation and care, that can only be accomplished through education, if it is eventually to support adequately a population of billions of intelligent beings.

  D: All of the above.

  "White Bull, are these the secrets of the stars and atoms?" When I dared to ask that question the two of us were alone in a classroom, after class.

  "Did you an-swer all the ques-tions on the test cor-rec-tly, Dae-dal-us?"

  "I received a perfect grade." The wax tablets had already been graded. "And it wasn't very hard to do that. Look at this question. Anyone might be expected to realize that the world is bigger than one island it contains. And I have not doubted for a long time that the earth is spherical. Few intelligent people doubt that, once they begin to think about it. One need only look at the earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse. And if answers A and B are both true, then it must be intended that I accept C as truthful also, though I confess C really makes no sense to me."

  The teacher was silent, as if ruminating. As if I had somehow put him on the defensive.

  I was not content to let him remain silent. "Are these the secrets of the stars and atoms? Do these questions represent any kind of step on the way to learning how to fly?"

  "Pa-tience, Dae-dal-us. One step at a time. The ad-vanced the-o-ries of ped-a-gog-y hall-ow this mode of tea-ching."

  "Bah!"

  "Now you are once more a stu-dent, dis-re-spect low-ers your grade and slows your progress."

  According to the agreement, I was to attend school for half a day, every day except on the rare holidays. But it was also understood between the Bull and Minos that I, as a student, would be able to keep a somewhat flexible schedule. At least I hoped that they shared such an understanding. My two masters no longer met each other face to face, so it was up to me to do what I could to convey this idea to them both.

  Meanwhile I found myself still compelled to spend varying amounts of time on the king's various projects�the building, the catapults, the life-like moving statues (not much hope of success there) and to keep them all progressing as well as possible. Naturally the Bull declined to give direct assistance on any of them. My days were more than full, though half a brain would have sufficed to do all the schoolwork that had so far been required of me.

  At least, a
s far as I could tell, the White Bull was keeping his part of the bargain. One of his chief acolytes and assistant administrators, an earnest mainland youth named Stomargos, explained proudly to me how Theseus was being shunted into a special program.

  "The Prince of Athens will be allowed to choose both his Greater and Lesser Branches of learning from courses that have not previously been given for credit," announced this young man, whose own Greater was, as he had proudly informed me, the Transmission of Learning itself. "Since Prince Theseus seems fated to spend most of his life as a warrior, the Bull is preparing for him courses in Strategic Decision, Command Presence, and Tactical Leadership—these, of course, in addition to those in Language, Number, and the Values of Thinking Beings, that are required of all first-year students." Stomargos, frail and clumsy at the same time, stood teetering proudly on his toes, his hands clasped behind him.

  "I wish the royal student well," said I with feeling. Then I paused for thought. "It may be foolish of me to ask, but I cannot forbear; where and how is the course on Tactical Leadership to be conducted?"

  "All courses are conducted within the student's mind," This answer, especially in the tone used by Stomargos to impart it to a first-year student, sounded somewhat condescending. But I maintained my patience and pursued the matter. I was able to discover that part of the Labyrinth itself was to be the military training ground, which was no surprise. Beyond that Stomargos could not—or would not—tell me much.

  On returning to my workshop that afternoon, I found a tablet-message from Icarus's teacher awaiting me. The boy had run off somewhere, playing truant. It was the third time within a month that this had happened. And scarcely had I had time to grumble at this message and put it aside to take up my real work, when Icarus himself came dawdling in, an elbow scraped raw, arm messy with dried blood from some mishap during the day.

  Waving the teacher's tablet at my son, I growled and lectured. But in that boy's face I could always see Kalliste, and I could not be really harsh. I ordered a servant to take Icarus home, treat his injury, and keep him confined to quarters for the remainder of the day.

  Then, at least, I had a little time alone. Time in which to part the curtain at the rear of my more or less public workshop, and move into the private regions beyond. Only now and then did I allow a single helper to enter these precincts. At the rear of this private section there was a secret door beyond which no helper had yet passed. The door was a panel in a wall that I had fashioned with my own hands. The panel looked like nothing more than dead, dull wood, yet it slid out of the way as if by silent magic when you knew how to make it move. In moving, the panel carried with it what had looked like an awkward, obstructing pile of trash.

  Now there was time for me to step through one more door, and close the panel again, and then crank open a secret skylight above this secret room. And then to look by daylight at the great man-wings spread out on a long bench.

  I had long ago given up on real feathers as totally impractical. Now I worked mostly with thin canvas and thin leather, using light padding of Egyptian cotton to add shape. But the work had been lagging lately, and not only because of the demands of other projects. I could feel in my bones that more thought, a new approach, were needed. If the trick of designing wings were as easy as it appeared it might be, it would have been accomplished long ago by someone else.

  When, using straps at waist and shoulder, I fastened on one of the half-finished wings and beat it downward through the air, the effect was essentially no better than waving a fan; there was no suggestion of my body being impelled toward the sky.

  Yes, there were obviously essential secrets still to be discovered. And I comforted myself by thinking that it would be much more satisfying to discover those secrets on my own than it would be to learn them from the Bull. Not that any enlightenment from that source seemed likely at any time soon.

  I did not return to my living quarters until late at night. Looking in on Icarus I found him sleeping peacefully in his own small room. Then I grabbed a mouthful of fruit and one of cheese, drank half a cup of wine, shooed a bored and sleepy concubine out of my way, and dropped on my own soft but simple bed to rest.

  It seemed that scarcely had my eyes closed before I heard the voices of soldiers, loudly bullying a servant at my door.

  One raucous voice came bellowing in: "—orders to bring Daedalus at once before the king!"

  By now the hour was very late indeed. This was not the usual way for civilized Minos to summon one of his most trusted and respected advisors. I knew fear as, shivering, I went with the soldiers out under the late, cold stars.

  Fortunately, the lieutenant in charge-of the small squad, an old acquaintance, took pity on me. "The problem's not primarily about you, sir, but about Prince Theseus. The king is…" The soldier shook his head, and let his words trail off in a puffed sigh of awe.

  It was the formal audience chamber to which the soldiers conducted me—definitely a bad sign, I thought. There were two people in the chamber already when we arrived. At the king's nod my military escort saluted and backed out, leaving three of us there including the king. I went to stand before the throne, where Theseus moved over a little on the narrow carpet to make room for me.

  Minos, seated on his own tall chair between the famous painted griffins, ignored me for the moment and continued a merciless chewing-out of the young prince. The flames of the several oil lamps now and then trembled as if in awe. The tone of the king's voice was settled, almost weary, suggesting to me that this tongue-lashing had been going on for quite some time.

  Sneaking a glance now and then at Theseus, I decided that the prince had been drunk recently, but was drunk no longer. Scratches on the sullen, handsome face, and a large bruise on one bare shoulder—Theseus was now attired in the Cretan gentleman's elegant loincloth—suggested a recent bout of strenuous activity. And the king's words filled in the story.

  Icarus had not been the only student playing truant yesterday, and Theseus would have been wiser to bruise himself in some activity as innocent as seeking birds' eggs on the crags. Instead he had led a few of his more adventurous male classmates on an escapade in town. Practicing his Tactical Leadership, I could not help but think, even while I kept my face impeccably grave and my eyes properly downcast in the face of Minosan wrath.

  The catalogue of charges was enough to stifle laughter. Violence against citizens of Crete and their valuable slaves. Unprincipled destruction of property. Shameful public drunkenness, bringing disrepute upon House and School alike, not to mention the royal family of Athens. All these offenses topped off by the attempted outrage of the daughters of some merchant families who were too important to be so treated with impunity.

  Through most of this recital, Theseus held his hands behind him, sometimes tightening them into fists, sometimes playing like an idiot with his own massive fingers. His heavy but well-shaped features were set now in disciplined silence. For him this was probably very much like being home again and listening to his father.

  "—classmates involved will be expelled and sent home in disgrace," the king was saying. There followed the longest pause he had made since his chief engineer's arrival. "To do the same to you would of course be an insult to your father and a danger to our alliance. Daedalus, did I not set you in charge of this young blockhead's schooling?"

  Strictly speaking this claim was not accurate; but I merely bowed my head a little lower. Now was not the moment for any philosopher's insistence upon precise Truth; rather, the great fact that Minos was in a rage easily took precedence over Truth in any of its lesser forms.

  "His schooling, Daedalus, is not proceeding satisfactorily, "

  The king's chief artisan bowed his head somewhat lower yet.

  "And as for you, prince—now you may speak. What have you to say for yourself?"

  Theseus shifted his weight on his big feet, and spoke up calmly enough. "Sire, that school is driving me to drink and madness."

  Now Minos, too, was ca
lm. The royal rage had been used up. Or else it could, on the proper occasions, be turned on and off like the flow of water in one of the pipes I had provided for him.

  "Prince Theseus, you are under house arrest until further notice, allowed out only to attend school. I intend to station six strong soldiers at your door, and you may assault them, or try to, should you feel the need for further recreation."

  "I am sorry for what happened last night, King Minos." And it seemed he was. "But I can take no more of that school."

  "You will take more of it. You must." Then the king's eye swung back again to his counselor. "Daedalus, what are we to do? I and the queen leave in three days for this damned round of state visits. We are going as far as Macedonia, and we will probably be gone for months."

  "I fear I have been neglectful regarding the prince's problems, sire. Let me now make them my prime concern."

  A few hours after being excused by King Minos, and shortly after dawn, I once more entered the White Bull's quarters. This time I found the dais unoccupied. Heedless of stepping-stones, I sloshed through the little moat and stood beside the odd-shaped chair. There was never any need to call, and I stood waiting silently.

  In a few minutes the half-human figure appeared, more silvery and inhuman than ever in the early morning light. Before it took any notice of its caller it proceeded through a ritual splashing, bathing, in the moat. Then it climbed up on the dais to bid me welcome.

  "Learn from me, Dae-dal-us! How are you learning?"

  "White Bull, today I come to see you not on my own affairs, but on behalf of Prince Theseus. He is experiencing great difficulty in… no, let me speak more plainly than that. He tells me that his testing in the Labyrinth, in particular, is likely to drive him to violent madness. Knowing him, I believe him when he tells me that. He must not be allowed to fail in such a way."

  "The course of stu-dy of Tac-tics, Dae-dal-us, is pre-scribed. In part the course de-scrip-tion is as fol-lows: the tea-cher shall e-lic-it from the stu-dents facts as to their a-bil-i-ty to de-ter-mine spa-tial lo-ca-tions—"