The Trials of the Minotaur

Part One: The Blind Minotaur (Chapter Five)

It was at a revel that the Minotaur first heard of the Centaur. A provincial administrator from one of the territories told him of the creature, captured beyond the border of his jurisdiction and brought under his charge to the capital. It was to compete against him when the pantheon was next in session. According to the official it had taken a dozen men to subdue it and an armed guard of twenty was kept around at all times in case it broke free of its chains.

He smiled at the Minotaur. “I will still be placing my coin on you, though.”

“Would you say I have the weight of him?”

“Oh, yes,” the administrator said, “by a fair margin to be sure. Of course, he has the advantage in the appendages.”

They both guffawed loudly, drawing stares from the rest of those gathered.

A vizier, newly appointed by the emperor, happened to be in attendance that evening. He stood at one end of the room receiving a stream of well-wishers and supplicants. The Minotaur, noticing the crowd and having had his share of wine, decided to add his voice to chorus. As he drew closer the courtier at the vizier’s side intercepted him while master looked on with palpable distaste.

“The vizier is quite busy, as you might expect,” the courtier said.

“I just wish to pay my respects like everyone.”

“He does not need any words from your kind.”

“I am on the rolls,” the Minotaur said.

“Are you?” His sneer widened. “No patrician has ever competed in the contests to my knowledge. Your presence before him is an insult to the quality of his blood.”

The Minotaur stalked away without a word in reply. The eyes of the crowd were upon him, but he did not notice. People watched him no matter the circumstance. Though he was seething, he knew there was little he could do. And what did it matter, he tried to tell himself – though they might all refuse to acknowledge his blood, even if the registry told a different tale, they could not deny his standing among them. That he had earned in the pantheon.

He took some more wine and began to feel better about the state of the evening and soon he was joking and laughing with a few of his patrician friends. They talked of the new vizier, someone mentioning that he was a friend of the Dethcalla, this being the closest someone of that family had come to the emperor’s inner circle since… The rest of was left unsaid, though the thought was on everyone’s faces until one of them rallied to save the day, asking the Minotaur if he had heard there was a Centaur in Colosi being prepared to face him.

It was late in the evening that a beautiful patrician approached him, the attendance at the revel having thinned considerably, and those remaining loud in their drink. She grasped him by the wrist, her slender hand unable to come close to grasping the whole of his hand.

“I am a great admirer of your feats,” she told him.

“And I am a great admirer of beauty,” he replied with a smile.

They spoke for a time, though to the Minotaur it seemed merely a rote conversation, each of them saying what was necessary to move their acquaintance to its logical next step. They reached that moment soon enough when a pause in their conversation stilled them both. She seized him by the wrist again and led him to one of the rooms deeper in the estate house where there were couches that they could take their pleasure on.

As they left the room he glanced over his shoulder, a premonition beckoning him, and saw a patrician watching, his face a crazed mask of rage and jealously written plain. Her husband or lover, no doubt. The Minotaur, the sting of courtier’s dismissal still in his ear, could not resist a smile before returning his attention to the exquisite woman leading him away.