“Sir, I am a Nubian queen. You are doubtless aware that the chief exports of my country are gold and hired assassins.”
He leaped to his feet while I continued to lounge.
In the blink of a falling star, we were moored to the berth.
“Eunostos,” I said. “Give the man his reward.” Eunostos fetched a casket out of the cabin, loosened the chain, raised the lid, and extracted a large golden elephant with eyes of jade—worth a dozen berths—and solemnly handed it to the nautical sort.
The sailor knew his goods. He gasped and grinned at me. Before we could stop him, he had sprung on the deck and offered his hand to help me to my feet.
I waved him away from my couch with a hint of dismay.
“Don’t touch me, my man. My person is sacrosanct. However, I do appreciate your thought.” I rose, unassisted, to my queenliest height and stood on the deck to be admired in my Nubian finery. It was not an easy rise, so laden I was with ivory bracelets, golden anklets, earrings as big as goose eggs, not to speak of a tiger skin robe without a tail. Then, preceded by Eunostos with his spear—he held it perfectly straight—followed by Melissa and Phlebas, and flanked by my escort of Goat Girls in a row so precise as to make me proud, disembarked from our vessel and confronted the Enemy.
It was not a time to deliberate; it was a time to act.
“Eunostos, fetch me a carrying chair.” (Loudly.)
“Something suitable to my royal person.” Carrying chairs were numerous and various because of the ladies who came to the port to buy fish or imported vegetables—Cretan ladies go anywhere—or travelers from the sea, whether merchant, soldier, wanderer, courtesan, or thief. I dismissed the first three pairs of carriers because their chairs did not look suitable to a foreign queen. The fourth was freshly painted, softly cushioned, brightly canopied against the torrid sun.
“This will do,” I said, and I mounted the chair as if it were an elephant in my native land, and, my escort following me on foot, headed for the city and the quest.
“A caravanserai?” inquired my carriers, Libyans both of them, dark, soft-spoken, clearly in awe of me, a Nubian, from a richer, remoter, harder race.
“The palace,” I instructed. The King, I assumed (and hoped), was not in residence, though even a king would not force a change in plan. “To seek audience with the Prince!” he cried with growing respect. Prince? He could only refer to Minos’ son and heir to the throne, a young man who, being unwed among a people customarily wed at Oryx’s age, and who, being both rich and titled, was courted and coveted by every single female on the island. (I had also heard that he was a simpleton.)
“Audience?” I said. “I am expected.” Did I not have a way with young men? I would use my craft on the Prince to learn what I wished to know. I would ask with disdain why no one had met my ship. I would speak of messages sent and lost. I would speak of gold and slaves and elephant tusks . . . contracts inscribed on stone or written on scrolls and sealed with signet rings.
That is to say, if the sun did not melt the umber on the cheeks of my escort, trudging in the sun.
That is to say, if no one, including myself in my somewhat jostling course, should lose a hood and prickle with pointed ears.
It is good to expect the unexpected. But “If” has never dominated my life.
I did not doubt that we would find Silver Bells. I did not doubt. . . .
“Just in time for the Games tomorrow.”
“Games? What games?”
The first carrier, wiry and small, more like a Blue Monkey than a man, peered over his shoulder with revelations perched on his tongue.
“The Bull Games.”
“And what is their nature this year?”
“Nobody ever knows, except the gamemasters. But one thing everybody knows.”
“And what is that, my man?”
“There’s more than a bull this year.”
My heart leaped in my breast like a hooked carp. “And what is more than a bull?”
“A bull-man. A Minotaur. And a boy and a lady with yellow hair. And—”
“Please,” I said. “My head is about to burst. The sea, don’t you know, and now this ride.” I must think, I must plan. . . .
“Well now,” said the carrier, squinting ahead of us. “The Prince himself is coming to meet you, it seems. See? Purple canopy. Ivory handles. Achaean escort. . . .”
My head bad deared. I bad completed my plan. “Carrier,” I said. “You may set my chair in the road. The middle.”
“And block the Prince’s path?”
“Do as I say.”
I stepped from the chair and faced the approaching Prince. (Zoe, summon your wiliest wiles.)
Chapter Nine
Oryx
“The wine is from Thera,” said Marguerite, moving the vessel to the light and judging the color of ripe pomegranate, sniffing the fine bouquet, and touching the brim to her lips.
“The best,” said Silver Bells.
“And probably the last,” I sighed. “Like the parrot-fish we’re eating. Tender and succulent. Spiced with pumpkin seeds. They feed us well. They hold us in this villa which might be a guest house for friends of the fat old man.”
The room was sparse but rare with furnishings. We sat at a six-legged table on leather-padded stools. A chair of citron wood, costly and frail, invited the guest to look but not to rest and pervaded the room with its sweet-and-acrid accent. The usual couch of stone, cushioned with pillows in the shape of pheasants, offered to hold the weight of even our host. A small, boat-like brazier promised warmth for evenings in the winter, when snow fell on the mountains and even the coast was ablaze with nocturnal fires.
“Because it isn’t for long, you see,” I continued. “Isn’t that right, Silver Bells?” In the dark beyond our candles, our snug and substantial walls, I heard the cry of a griffin, shrill and cruel; and distant, tantalizing with thoughts of escape and freedom, the slow reverberation of the sea. (I thought of Tritons to hush my wanderlust.)
He had tried to cheer us since we had left the Country. At such a time, however, he could not bring himself to invent a lie. Whatever words he had said, his grave and tender face would have told the truth.
“Yes. I expect it will be tomorrow.”
“Silver Bells?”
“Yes, Sweet Marguerite?”
“I want you to know that—that whatever happens, I will always be Marguerite. The name you gave me and never Hora.” She somehow restrained her tears, but her eyes were red. She had forgotten a courtesan’s way to weep.
“It suited you from the first,” he smiled, “though you didn’t suspect. And it’s grown to suit you more.” He drew us into a long embrace, and his hug was the light of a pharos to a floundering ship, a wall against a Sphinx. (But a ship may sink in spite of the light, and a Sphinx may breach a wall.)
“I wish,” I began.
“Yes, Oryx?”
“May I keep your name for me?” It was not the question which urged to be asked.
“Of course! Swift as an oryx, stalwart and proud.”
“Have you room for a little brother?” I blurted.
“Room for a younger brother. Not so little, though. Discounting my horns, you’re just about my height.”
“I don’t want to be your sister,” cried Marguerite, and, embarrassed, she emptied her cup and began to chatter of trivialities.
“How do the Cretans make their leather?” she asked, pretending to note the stool on which she sat.
I knew how she hurt. Thanks to Zoe, I knew how she hurt and tried to add to the trifles. “From the bulls they sacrifice, I expect.” At such a time, I could hardly have made a clumsier try.
I did not expect to sleep that ominous night. And yet I slept before I had finished the parrot-fish and come to the pumpkin slices; I laid my head on the table and dreamed of Zoe giving an orgy for me instead of Chiron.
Slowly I lifted my head and opened my eyes. Roseate morning blinked in the windows.
&nb
sp; “Mar—” I began. A simple name was difficult to speak.
“Marguerite.” Complete but hushed. We had been drugged, of course. The wine or the parrot-fish.
She drowsed beside me, her hair spilled goldenly over the table like rare ambrosial wine.
I forced an exclamation into my voice. “They have taken Silver Bells!”
“I feel so rested,” she murmured, lifting her head. “See, the sun is high in the sky—Silver Bells gone, you say?” She tried to leap to her feet, stumbled, and tottered into my aims. I eased her onto a stool. “Dear Hora, they have taken him from us while we slept!”
“Opium juices, wouldn’t you say?”
“Mixed with the wine, no doubt. They wanted to keep us quiet. We might have fought when they took him away.”
“Would have fought.” Yes, and killed, and even died for him.
“They wanted to rest us from our capture. They mean us to look our best for the bloodthirsty crowds. You know how they pride themselves on their looks. Even their prisoners have to please their eye!”
“Well!” I muttered. “I’m rested all right. Enough for a fight to the death. Am I looking my best?”
“A trifle dingy, perhaps. Here, there’s a smudge on your cheek.”
Quietly as an ibex in feather-grass, the Libyans entered the room: the dark old woman with the single eye, a boy and a girl of perhaps my own age with faces meant to be blithe but saddened by their lot, and sad of expression now; surely, sympathetically, they moved among us and saw to our needs. They seemed to walk in peace. Or resignation? I wonder if anyone forgets the land of his birth.
“Mistress and Master,” the woman said with surprising forcefulness. It was her subject which gave her spirit—and fear. “We must prepare you for the Games. Master must wear a loin cloth, and a golden bull to hang around his neck, and an armlet of copper embedded with malachite. He must dress like a prince. He must Suit the occasion. Mistress must wear. . . .” She paused and seemed to think of a happier time, for herself and Marguerite.
We submitted ourselves to their kind, insistent hands. To fight them would have been useless as well as cruel. We knew of the guards who patrolled the grounds, the guardian griffins, quick to scream and attack. They bathed us separately in a gypsum tub and dried us with myrrh-scented robes.
“Here,” said the boy with a grin. He gave me a loin cloth which, I thought, was surely meant for a child, so tight and constricting it felt to my loins, and the metal ring which he hooked around my waist was as cruel as an octopus clasp.
“I am not a Cretan,” I coughed. “You will choke me to death.”
“Nor is my master plump like me. Let him suck in his breath. There. A little more. Splendid, splendid!” He summoned the girl and both of them, stocky and thick, gazed with admiration at my imprisoned waist.
“Now, can Master still speak?”
“Yes. In a whisper.”
“He will soon grow used to his belt. It is a sign of—importance.” (Ambiguous word!) “Here.” He gave me a mirror of oval bronze. I will have to say that I preened at the “prince” I saw, impossibly slim, his nudity broken only by loin cloth (which covered the loins and left the rest to view), snake-twining armlet, and golden bull of a pendant; hair combed long behind his head and as smooth as spider silk. Really, I am a terrible exhibitionist. With Silver Bells, undress is a matter of custom, with me it is choice. A man is patterned after the Goddess’ son and meant to be admired, just as a woman, who reflects the Goddess. If the hordes must stare, they could stare at the most of me and surmise the rest. I was given two gifts, my body and my craft. Zoe, delectable thief, had stolen my craft!
“Does the ring still pinch?” aiked the boy.
“To tell the truth,” .1 said, “I might wear a smaller ring.”
But Marguerite! She was an image of gold. She wore a saffron, bell-shaped skirt, its hem embroidered with cobalt-blue bulls. Her flounced sleeves were a deeper blue to deepen the blue of her eyes. Her breasts were bare and the nipples were painted gold. Her hair was swept in a swirl behind her head, except that little curls were allowed to tumble above her ears, artless art, the specialty of the Cretans. Her luminescent eyes did not require any kohl; a dash of carmine had reddened her lips. An image, I say, rare and sad and mute. She seemed to be chiselled from ivory and gold—chryselephantine—and now she longed to return to shapelessness, the swift oblivion of inanimate things (but then, were inanimate things oblivious on this island? In any land? I thought of Bumpers, the hill . . .).
“Ah,” gasped the girl. “I had taken you for the Goddess.”
“No,” said the woman, shaking her head with the slow, deliberate movement of the old. Her single eye was not deceived. “The Lady is sometimes grieved for the sake of her children. But she does not fly from her grief.”
“I have no wings to fly,” said Marguerite. “I wish I had. For Silver Bells is gone.”
“Find him.” Proudly they left the room, the woman, the boy, and the girl, and left us to ponder the parting admonition.
“Find him?” cried Marguerite. “When I am a prisoner and he is—who can say where?”
“I think,” I began. “I think she meant in another way. But of course you’ve already started.”
We were led from the house by two impassive guards, Achaeans instead of Libyans, each of them clad in an apron-like garment which fell to his knees, showing, however, his thighs, and holding a spear with military precision. At the gate, we ascended a chariot drawn by two of those curious creatures, horses, their manes divided into three meticulous tufts—I did not like their odor; I did not like them because they seemed to be Chirons without human faces.
We never saw the Master of the house.
The Street we rode was almost peopleless: The people had gone to the Games. An old dotard knelt on a roof and shook his head in wordless sympathy. A small boy, carving a griffin from a pomegranate rind, peered at us through an open door. Otherwise, we confronted clay facades, newly painted, doors rimmed in wood, windows closed with pale yellow parchment against the heat; shops with counters and overhanging roofs; apartments of many levels and few openings, and gardens atop them like shaggy parasols; a drainage canal on either side of the street. A city of shades it seemed, timeless, unused, unworn. Thus the immaculateness of the Cretans, who would sooner beat a slave than litter their streets; thus, a people deathly afraid of dirt but addicted to games where death is expected and cheered.
Near the arena we overtook the stragglers from the crowd and our guards revealed their power.
“Step to the side,” they said, simultaneous in command, and one of them prodded a bystander with his spear and cleared a path for us. Achaeans make the best of mercenaries. At ease with weapons, short-sword, ax, or spear, they do not hesitate to kill. (A Cretan would rather give an order to kill; he may like the look of blood but not on his hands. It is part of his cleanliness.) And how the obeyers stared at us who would play in their Games! Well, I stared at them. Such a small and delicate folk! Handsome, yes, flawlessly made, but I looked with scorn at their black and filleted hair and raised my head to its fullest height to let them see and covet my spider-silken gold!
Then, the Theatral Area, a bee-hive of stone from the distance; an arena close at hand.
“Marguerite,” I said, “it isn’t as large as I thought.”
“You’re used to Egypt,” she said. “If they had such games, if they had such arenas, they would be large enough to enclose a pyramid. Think in miniature. In the case of such little people, the whole city can crowd into the place.” Other races enjoyed other amusements; theatral areas belonged to Crete.
“And most of them have.”
Surrounded by such a clamoring multitude, I felt as if I were miniaturized into an ivory figurine like those which the Cretans place in the niche of a household shrine but not, alas, with the spirit of deity. Far from worshipped, I might be lifted and dropped and shattered into a hundred graceless bits.
“Adrift,” mu
ttered Marguerite, who was suffering different but no more hopeful thoughts. “Adrift in a maelstrom without a boat.”
No, the ring held a dais uncannily shaped like a boat, festooned with crimson streamers, mounted by stairs, surmounted with one cedar pole which flaunted a purple flag. It had the look of an altar as well as a boat (an Egyptian funerary barque for carrying the dead to the place of burial?). Did it offer a voyage of hope or desolation?
Our guards, never breaking their military stance, pointed the way to the steps. One of them, blonde like me but with eyes like solidified lava, announced to us—and the mob:
“Our guests will mount the dais.”
Guests. . . . In a curious way, he was right: housed in a villa, fed like favored friends, escorted through the crowd. From the first, our status had been ambiguous but somehow—honorable. We were part of the Games. Of course, we might also be part of a sacrifice. Curious Cretans, cruel without even recognizing cruelty, reverent of the animal whom they sacrificed to their god. In Egypt we had found a similar faith: The deadly crocodile was hunted and killed—and mummified as a god. Superstition? The Beasts had begun to teach us the truth. Zoe, Zoe, why did you start what you could not finish, waken what should have slept!
“We have company,” I said. An image of the God, molded in terra cotta and wreathed in irises, stood at the head of the stairs like a kindly host.
“Well, he isn’t a child,” said Marguerite. “He’s a young man. He ought to act his age and protect his guests.”
“He does as he must,” I shrugged. “Remember, the Cretans think if they sacrifice you, your spirit will go at once to the Celestial Garden.”
“That’s Egyptian. And Osiris judges you first.”
“Achaean, Egyptian, Cretan—we’re such mongrels, Cousin. To the Griffin Judge then, since we are in his land. But where will we really go?” Some gods are false; some have limited power; some are powerful among their worshippers but hostile to foreigners. “Silver Bells thinks he will be a snake. Do you suppose he is right?”
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