No Substance #137: The King Must Die by Mary Renault
“The citadel of Troizen, where the Palace stands, was built by giants before anyone remembers,” Mary Renault’s Theseus says at the start of The King Must Die. “But the Palace was built by my great-grandfather. At sunrise, if you look at it from Kalauria across the straight, the columns glow fire-red and the walls are golden. It shines bright against the dark woods on the mountainside.”
From here, in this moment of pride, Renault allows Theseus to begin his recount of his childhood, of growing up as the son of a priestess, of not knowing who his father was, and how revelation of this saw him head to Athens to claim his birthright. As he heads there, he fights bandits and becomes the King of Eleusis after killing the former king, and survives the attempts the Queen makes on his life. Almost half the book goes past before Theseus, seeking to prove himself to the people of Athens, takes his place in the sacrificial tribute of young men and women that go to Crete, and be offered to the Minotaur's labyrinth.
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