The Age of Zeus

I."

"I've been doing OK on my own so far."

"There's absolutely no slight intended here on your leadership qualities. Those have been all but impeccable. This is about taking the Titans to the next level. Our biggest battles lie ahead. I like to think that the addition of me to your number will strengthen your — our — effectiveness."

"Well," said Sam frostily, "you're the boss."

"Indeed I am."

"And Darren Pugh," she said. "Would I be wrong in thinking he was never going to be Cronus? It was never likely?"

"Ah, Pugh. Yes. He was more of a… Do you know the word libation?"

"Long word for a drink. Popular with pompous pub landlords and real-ale bores."

"Bit more than that. It's an offering. In classical times, before wine was served at a feast some of it would be poured out onto the ground, to appease the gods. The same at sacrifices, so that the gods would be propitiated and whatever the sacrifice was being made in aid of would be granted. Now I of course don't believe in any of that nonsense literally, but I thought it would be a nice idea — appropriate — if in this classically-based enterprise of mine I followed the precedent. Instead of a wine libation for good luck, a human libation. One of you. One I could afford to lose, even wanted to lose. I selected Pugh as the twelfth invitee secure in the knowledge, or let's at least say ninety-nine per cent certain, that he would back out before we'd even got going. He didn't have the incentive or the temperament to commit to the cause. And sure enough, he did exactly as anticipated. In addition, I'd been havering somewhat over whether I ought to enrol myself as a Titan. I was treating Pugh as a kind of test of fate. If he baulked, that would confirm that I was meant to be Cronus. And so he did, and so I was."

"A rigged test. You chose him mainly because you knew he wouldn't sign up."

"A test weighted in my favour, perhaps. But then it never hurts to give fate a little helping hand every now and then. That's something I've learned in business over the years. Good fortune is a case of playing the odds, and only an idiot plays poor odds."

"And Pugh was also there to consolidate the rest of us," Sam said. "He helped us make up our minds, by being such a wanker. We thought, Let's not be like him. Let's do the opposite of what he's done."

Landesman raised a sage eyebrow. "Such an accusation! Now would I do a thing like that? Deliberately expose you all to someone whose actions would, through contrasting example, lend impetus and validity to your actions?"

Sam stood. "All right, Mr Landesman. This is your show. You can run it however you like. I will prove you wrong about the Minotaur, though. And I'll do it within a week easily.

"And don't think I don't realise that taking away my prefect's badge is just another way of playing me. Now the pressure's on and I'll be twice as determined to get the Minotaur onside. You're an arch manipulator, and that's fine. I just want you to know I know I'm being manipulated, and I'm only going along with it because it serves my purpose."

Landesman acknowledged this. "For what it's worth," he said, "I'd never make anyone do anything they didn't already — "

He broke off. Sam was half out the door and, he could tell by the tension in her upper body, poised to bang it shut behind her as hard as she could.

"Please!" he cried. Then, more softly, and imploringly: "Please. Don't."

"Don't…?"

"Slam it. There's nothing I can't abide more than a door being slammed. Alexander, my son… Towards the end, that was all he ever seemed to do — slam doors on me. It was the soundtrack to the latter years of our relationship, like drumbeats getting faster and faster, until one day the front door slammed, loudest of all, and that was that. He left, never to return. So I… I have a thing about it. It's painful not only on the ears, and I'd appreciate it if you… well, didn't."

Sam was tempted.

But then she wasn't some stroppy, spoiled rich kid with parental-neglect issues, was she?

She departed quietly; closed the door gently.

From the other side came a "Thank you!" and there was something about it that made Sam pause. The tone was ever so slightly smug.

She couldn't help wondering: had she just been manipulated again?