Dion: His Life and Mine Read Online Free PDF Page B

to the guards to send the visitor packing. Fortunately, Aegeus arrived and asked what all the noise was about. Theo showed him the sword and sandals which Aegeus had thoughtfully given Theo’s mother. They were enough explanation for Aegeus, who immediately acknowledged his son and asked after his former girlfriend, much to his wife’s dismay. I hope my sister has a better relationship with her stepson.              
    Aegeus had seven glorious years of bonding with his boy, during which time he held, in Theo’s honour, those doomed games in which my brother died and all our fates were sealed. Then disaster struck for Aegeus, as Theo decided to prove himself worthy of being the heir of Athens and stamp his mark on the world. How? By challenging my father and putting an end to his monster’s large and unsavoury appetite.
    My father was secretly impressed and taken aback by Theo’s loyalty, intelligence and athletic build. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Andro; which, instead of softening my father, rubbed salt into the wound he picked, with his stubbornness. He interviewed Theo in his study, on his arrival, befitting Theo’s status as the son of another king. Theo told me later that my father was nothing if not courteous, approachable and hospitable. After the cordial, civil welcome protocol demanded, Theo got to his point.
    “I’ve come to make a proposition, sir.”
    A slight nod of my father’s head indicated that Theo should carry on.
    “I am this year’s sacrifice.”
    “An eye for an eye?”
    “If I don’t succeed, yes,” Theo replied slowly.
    “Succeed in what?”
    “Where others have failed; killing your beast, sir. If I kill it, there will be no need for other sacrifices, and if it kills me, it will be a son for a son…”
    “And there will be no need for further sacrifices,” my father finished for him.
    “Yes. I think you’ll agree the debt will have been paid. That is my proposition.”
    “Do you know what you are up against?”
    “I have heard tales, and I believe I can handle it.”
    “What are your credentials?”
    “A love of my country and my father. Is that not enough?”
    “Indeed it is.” And so father accepted Theo’s proposition, but with two provisos. “I normally offer the fourteen candidates a night’s hospitality,” he told Theo. “As this time there is just you, I will accept nothing less than fourteen nights from you.”
    “Agreed with gratitude, sir and the second?”
    “That you do not enter the labyrinth until it is opened for you in fourteen days’ time.”
    It was Daedalus who told me that Theo had arrived. He rushed down to Aster’s rooms to give me warning that father would expect me to don my attire of respectability and the role of dutiful daughter. The time I had spent with Aster, since Andro’s death, had created a strong bond between us. The harder we worked together to make money to fund our plan of leaving, the less dutiful I felt towards my father. I was sick of the way he was using my beloved brother as a pawn for his wicked games. He hadn’t even seen Aster, let alone spoken to him, since ‘the condition’ had been diagnosed and he never referred to him by name, except as ‘my money monster’. It wasn’t even as if Aster was dead; it was as if he had never existed at all. Father had also ruined my mother’s life, driving her mad and making her a laughing stock with the rumour that she had slept with a bull. Now she spent her time secluded, like her poor son, endlessly wandering in the maze of her mind, except when she was required to play the good hostess.
    Timing is everything and by the time Theo arrived I was ready to get even with my father. And yes, okay, I admit I was immediately attracted to Theo. Whose head wouldn’t be turned? Isn’t every girl supposed to be looking for a tall, dark, handsome dream? And there he was, dream personified, sitting in my living room, making small talk with my mother and patting the