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.Fortunately, Ariadne had remembered to give the slave-girl coins, trusting her more than me to understand the details of using money.Presently something to drink, carried in a strange flagon, appeared on the broad table before me.I should mention that I was not entirely unused to wine; Ariadne had brought me some from time to time, and in the old days it had sometimes come, in small glasses, suitable for my youth, with the official meals that were then sent out to me from the palace.That an intoxicating drink would be served in this establishment suggested Bacchus once again.Beside me a loudmouthed man had now ceased haranguing the world long enough to empty a flagon of foaming beer.I had heard that the new god of Corycus frowned on most kinds of merriment; well, people were not going to give up wine, let Shiva threaten as much as he liked.The noise, the press of the crowd around me, more solid than in any dream, tended to be confusing.I had emptied my first flagon of wine and started on another before it occurred to me that if I drank or ate anything, I risked revealing that my mouth was mobile flesh, not part of a lifeless mask.But the hesitation was only momentary.To the Underworld with it! I was going to enjoy the wine.The unaccustomed drink produced a swaying of the room, a roaring in my ears.I had to wait for a long moment, until everything began to settle down again.Then I banged the empty flagon on the table, and made a bull-sound deep in my throat.I wanted to drink still more, and yet I was afraid.Only now, with the drink beginning to act upon my senses, did I begin to pay attention to a large mirror, hanging on the wall behind the long table where the drinks were poured.The broad, smooth glass was as long as the table itself, and from that position it reflected all the dim lights of the large, low room.Looking at my image in the mirror, I beheld a figure seven feet tall, weighing, as I knew, a little over three hundred pounds.Two sharp horns on the head, large brown eyes set wide apart, on a long bull-like face, now painted in stripes and dots that struggled to give a look of artificiality.Muffled in the great shirt were massive shoulders and arms, the latter terminating in hands that were trying to hide their almost inhuman size in grotesque and fancy gloves.The face and most of the body (now concealed by my costume) was covered with short cattle-hair.The removal of a glove, the better to deal with a drinking glass, revealed long fingers, heavy nails.But my gaze kept coming back to the reflected image of my face.Here it was, at last exposed for everyone to see, and had been ever since I entered the hall.But no one had really seen it yet.Standing in the middle of such a crowd, it was hard to know what to think, what to do next.In all my life, my waking eyes had never seen more than six or eight people at one time at close range, and fewer still had ever seen me.Men and women were almost as unfamiliar in a mass as cameloids.Now to be surrounded, almost imprisoned by swarming humans, was more unsettling than I had expected it would be.One of the young women, whose costume, or rather lack of one, suggested that she was a hired entertainer, put a hand upon my arm, only to withdrew it suddenly, a moment later.She must have felt skin that had the touch of fur, of something very much like cattle-hide.Suddenly brutal voices rose up nearby, and I feared that my disguise had been somehow penetrated—but no, it was only being ridiculed, by drunken celebrants."What is it, man or monster?""Not very convincing, if it's supposed to be the Minotaur."I turned toward the voices, but could find no words.Looking back at the situation now, I can see that my lack of ready speech must have only encouraged those who were looking for an opportunity to torment a victim."Hey, cow-face!" The speaker was large, though not, of course, as large as I.He was in costume too, some kind of parody of a military officer—not, of course, of the Minoan Palace Guard.I was being picked on, first from one side, then another.Emboldened by drink, I shouted back at them.My voice, tolerably human when I am calm, sometimes escapes control when I am greatly excited, making a braying noise.What words I might have used have escaped my memory now.Certainly I meant them as insults, but I lacked all skill in such matters, and perhaps I only sounded stupid."Your mask is uglier than mine," was perhaps my best attempt, addressed as it was to a lounger who, like myself, wore none.With that, the space around me grew ominously quiet.Clara had taken me by the arm, and was trying, first gently and then fiercely, to tug me away.But even when she pulled with all her strength, it was hardly possible for her to move me.And some accidental surging of the crowd in our immediate area had made the press so thick that quick movement was hardly possible.The tugging and shoving grew more violent.My tormentors and I were thrust together.It would have been hard to pinpoint a moment when the fight began.Someone swung into my midriff with a clumsy fist; I scarcely felt the blow.This was not why I had come here.Neither reality nor my world of dreams had prepared me for anything of the kind.I had, and have, no particular skill in personal combat.I could send bad dreams upon someone I hated—if I hated anyone—but that is all.But the sending of dreams required me first to go to sleep, and at the moment that was not feasible.Some of the men who joined the brawl were soldiers, off duty and here to spend their pay, and some were not.Several were armed, though weapons were not drawn at first [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]