The Goddess Under Zakros

by Paul Moomaw

  “A brandy and soda.”

  Fugger stepped briskly across to an ornately carved sideboard that stood against a wall under a tryptich of large pictures—the photograph of a crenelated castle on the right, one of a large, tree-bordered house with whitewashed walls on the left, and an oil painting of a young, blond man in the field gray uniform of the Waffen SS between them. He pulled out two glasses and a bottle of Remy Martin XO.

  “I’m afraid this is the only brandy I have.”

  “Forget the soda, in that case.”

  Fugger smiled and nodded. “Of course.” He splashed a generous amount of cognac into Pray’s glass, then withdrew a bottle of Weller’s. From a side compartment, he pulled out an ice tray, dropped a couple of cubes into the glass, and filled it with whiskey. “I am addicted to your American sour mash.” He nodded toward a small, marble-topped table and a couple of chairs next to the window. “Sit, and we’ll talk.” He settled into one of the chairs, sipping on his whiskey, his eyes not leaving Pray as the other man sat down across from him.

  “You move like an athlete,” he said.

  “I like to get in a little exercise.”

  “I’m sure.” Fugger opened a silver box that rested on the table to reveal a stack of slender cigars, whose dark brown, almost black color said the tobacco was sun cured, and whose aroma spoke of quality. “Havana,” he said.” Will you have one?”

  “I don’t smoke, thanks.”

  “Do you mind if I do?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Fugger pulled a slender lighter from his pants and lit the cigar. “Your brother has an interesting lighter,” he said as he replaced his.

  “I remember when he found it, when we were kids.”

  “You have a long history together, then.”

  Pray shrugged. “Impressive place you have.”

  Fugger laughed. “I am asking too many questions. It is just that when I meet the brother of someone I have employed, I am curious. Is this someone who might be useful? Or someone who might be dangerous? My business is sensitive politically. I worry.” He pointed to a picture on the far wall. It was of a ship, long and lying oddly low in the water. The forward half stood somewhat higher, pierced at regular intervals by large windows that reminded Pray of the staterooms of a cruise ship. A massive, white dome, twice as tall as the rest of the vessel, dominated the stern.

  “That is my ship, der Rattensinger,” he said. She allows me to maintain this house that you find so impressive.”

  “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,” Pray murmured.

  “Bitte?”

  “An old nursery rhyme, about a woman who lived in a shoe, and had too many children and not enough of anything else.” He pointed his glass toward the picture. “It does look a little like a shoe.”

  Fugger laughed. “You are right, now I think of it. And your nursery rhyme comes closer than one might believe,” he said. “To tell the truth, just about everything I had, plus a fair amount I borrowed, begged or otherwise cajoled, is tied up in my ship. If it goes, I am like that old woman.”

  “You like taking risks.”

  Fugger nodded enthusiastically. “Very much. My entire life has been a risk.” He stood up. “But also, der Rattensinger is a genuine wonder. Look here.” He walked to a table, opened a drawer, and pulled something out, then stepped back to Pray’s side. In his palm he held a pile of shiny black gravel. “Give me any toxic material in the world and let me run it through the incinerator of my ship, and this is the result. Vitrified waste, completely safe. In fact..” He returned to the table, tossed the gravel into the drawer, and came back with a small statue of a man in medieval dress, playing the pipes of Pan. “This is of the same stuff, and I have commissioned a larger one to go aboard der Rattensinger.” The original process was developed by one of your countrymen. I have made it safer and more efficient. Best of all, it is in the middle of the ocean. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Pray drained his glass and held it out. “May I?”

  “Of course.” Fugger sprang up and took the glass to the sideboard. He filled it, and then stood for a moment—the word posed popped into Pray’s mind—gazing up at the castle on the wall. Pray had the idea that he was supposed to mention it.

  “The old ancestral home?” he asked.

  Fugger smiled and shook his head. He handed Pray the drink.

  “I was born in that white house,” he said, waving toward the other photo. He sat down, took a large gulp of whiskey. “Do you know of the Lebensborn program?”

  “Himmler’s grand plan to populate the world with Aryan masterpieces.”

  Fugger spread his hands in a mocking little bow. “You see before you one of those masterpieces. That house was a Lebensborn home, in a little town called Lenggries, in Bavaria. The Nazis confiscated it from a Jewish family. My mother’s name was Hilde Gruen. She was from Frankfurt, and I think she mainly wanted some decent food and a rest from factory work. Even before the war, the Nazis had people working double hours at half wages.” Fugger stood and approached the pictures. “That is the man my mother always claimed was my father. I think she was not really sure of that. But she always talked of him, of how polite and gentle he was. He never entered her room without knocking and asking permission. I gather others were less well-mannered. His name was Erich Fugger, and he was born there.” He pointed to the castle. “Schloss Nesselstein. It lies on the banks of the Loisach River near Murnau, in southern Germany. He died on the Russian front. I found the story of his death in the archives of the Murnau newspaper, with his picture.” Fugger grinned briefly. “That was the model for the portrait. I had professional photographers take the other two pictures.”

  Fugger returned to the sideboard and poured himself another whiskey. “My mother died of liver cancer when I was fifteen. They said it was from toxic fumes in the factory where she worked after the war. She had filled me with tales of my supposed Fugger heritage. So I went to Murnau, and found the place. The only one living there was an old woman. I think she was my father’s mother—perhaps my grandmother, yes? I introduced myself, and she stood in the door, and stared down at me, down her big, German nose with a hump in the middle. And do you know what she said to me, Mr. Pray?”

  Pray waited in silence.

  Fugger stalked back to the table, sat down, and gripped Pray’s wrist.

  “She said, ‘My son would never involve himself with Nazi trash.’ And then she slammed the door in my face.” Fugger stared out the window for a long moment. “I discovered that she died not long after. It pleases me to think that the shock of seeing me might have killed the old bitch. Best of all, the castle went up for grabs, and an American picked it off.” He swallowed more whiskey and fixed his eyes on Pray. “A Jew, in fact. Marvelous twist, don’t you think so? Closes the circle, so to speak.”

  Pray gazed at his host and looked for a trace of the drive that had brought him from a Frankfurt slum to this giant house perched above the sea. In the eyes, he decided—pale brown, deep set, and hard around the edges.

  “You’ve survived pretty nicely,” he said.

  “I agree,” Fugger replied. “And they do say the best revenge is to live well.”

  “A journalist friend once told me that the best revenge is to write well.”

  Fugger laughed delightedly. “Very nice. But as I am no writer, I will satisfy myself with this.” He refilled both glasses. “But now that you have so kindly allowed me both to satisfy my curiosity to meet you, and to inflict on you my life history, I must give you the information you came for. Your brother..” Fugger paused and peered at Pray, as if to emphasize the point, “whose services I value greatly, Mr. Pray, had to leave for Crete. On business. He will not have a fixed schedule, but will leave word of his location in the town of Sitia, at the business establishment of a man named Milos Argyros. It is called The Fat Fisherman.”

  “Small world,” Pray said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing.” Pray
finished the brandy and stood up. Fugger rose as well and took his arm as they walked toward the door.

  “Your brother has a sailboat,” he said. “He calls it the Broken Wing, and he refuses to tell me why.” He leaned toward Pray conspiratorially. “If you find out, please let me know. Such puzzles leave me sleepless.”

  * * *

  CRETE,1400 BC

  Amphimedes Three Fingers leans against the wickerwork body of his battle chariot and surveys the land that is to be his. The chariot, battered by this up-and-down island, groans under him. Amphimedes glances at the heaving, sweaty flanks of the two ponies that pull the vehicle. He has heard that across the sea to the northeast, in the land of the Hittites, they breed horses so large that one beast alone can pull a chariot—big enough, in fact, for a man in armor to ride on top of. He shifts his gaze to the ruined Cretan town before him, and allows himself to dream of a time when this land might afford him a pair of such horses. It is a small domain, but a precious gift of fate for the youngest son of a very minor branch of the house of Atreus, packed with olive trees and affording good grazing for the breeder sheep he has brought.

  He fingers the kiphos at his belt, the bronze sword with ivory inlay that, like the chariot, has never drawn blood, never in fact seen a use harsher than lopping an orange in half. He sweeps his eyes across the small valley. One or two buildings at most have withstood the fury of Poseidon Earthshaker, and they barely. Everything else lies in rubble. At the base of the nearest hill, and rising in two terraces up its slope, stands the ruined palace of whatever Minoan noble called this place his. Enough remains for Amphimedes to see that the windows were large, the walls fragile, and the fortifications nonexistent. They trusted their island to be the only fortress they needed.

  Amphimedes remembers, as a boy, listening to his grandfather’s tales of the Minoans. They sounded like gods; he thought they probably walked on water. Now he and other Achaeans have come in the wake of three generations of earthquake and fire, drawn by tales of a shattered land ripe for plucking, and have found men like any other, except perhaps smaller, who seem not to have the will to resist. Women, too, who spread their legs on command, although their swarthy skins and vulture noses make them not very desirable for anything more than a quick poke after a few cups of Minoan wine, which is indeed very good stuff.

  One of his own soldiers, the one called Ekhinos, stands at the edge of what was a house with a cellar, and is now only a hole surrounded by rocks. The soldier stares into the opening, and something in the set of his stocky body catches Amphimedes’ attention. Suddenly the man drops his spear and giant, figure-eight leather shield, and leaps into the cellar space. Amphimedes urges his team forward, and the chariot bangs and rattles across the rough ground. He draws up at the edge of the hole, and stares down at Ekhinos, who comes to attention with a scowl.

  “You found something. What did you find?” Amphimedes leans forward, trying to see past the soldier into the deep shadow that fills the corners of the cellar.

  Ekhinos shakes his head. “Nothing. I was mistaken.”

  Amphimedes straightens and stares at the other man, counting on the ice in his eyes to intimidate. He is inordinately proud of his eyes, to the point of signing himself glaukos, gray eyes, on documents, although his men have taken to calling him o skilos, the dog, behind his back, because of the difficulty he has keeping his pecker to himself.

  “You’re lying,” he says. Ekhinos shrugs, and as his shoulder moves, something glints in the shadow.

  Amphimedes points. “Bring me that.”

  “It’s mine,” the soldier says. “I found it.”

  “Anything here is mine by right of..” Amphimedes pauses. His own well-developed sense of irony will not allow him to add “conquest.”

  “By right of ownership,” he finishes. “Bring it here.”

  “Get it yourself.”

  Amphimedes clambers from the chariot. “Very well,” he says. He lowers himself into the cellar and faces Ekhinos. He draws his sword.

  The soldier smiles. “I had the pleasure; I will pay the price.”

  Amphimedes returns the smile. “If you survive, and aren’t too addled, perhaps I’ll promote you.”

  He slams the flat of the sword blade against the other man’s unprotected head.

  Ekhinos drops like a stunned ox. Amphimedes steps into the shadow. The bones of a human, a man by the size of them, lie stretched across the stone floor. They are old, cleaned and polished by the Gods know how many eons of wind and rain. Wrapped around the fingers of the skeleton’s right hand is a chain of lapis beads, and attached to that a honey bee of finely wrought gold and silver, more delicate and beautiful than anything Mycenae has ever produced. Amphimedes picks it up and lets it dangle, rotating and glinting in the bright sunlight. He smiles, pleased. A bee represents fertility, and productivity, a good omen for his new life on this island.

  Amphimedes wheels the horses and drives them, the chariot clattering and bounding behind, toward the ruined palace, where he has established a temporary home. He has ordered the scorched walls of the megarion, the grand hall of the building, braced with new timbers. A wide gap that the heaving earth has shaken out of one of the walls serves as an entrance, with sailcloth stretched across it for privacy. The guard standing by the watch fire has said nothing of a visitor. But as Amphimedes enters, and adjusts his vision to the flickering light of an olive oil lamp, a woman rises from the bed and bows, her hands pressing against the flounces of her skirt. Above the waist she wears nothing, except for the rouge that circles her nipples. The black hair and high, arched hawk’s beak of a nose label her Minoan, although her skin is as pale as the belly of a fish. Her waist is impossibly small above heavy hips and thighs. Just below her right breast a dark, livid mark spreads. He assumes it is a birthmark—it is too irregular for a tattoo—but it looks for all the world like a spider, and in the flickering light of the lamp, he can almost see it move.

  Amphimedes feels both desire and discomfort as she gazes at him with huge, unblinking eyes.

  “What are you?” he says. “A gift from my men?”

  She shakes her head and moves toward him. Amphimedes steps back warily. The woman smiles. She opens a clasp at her waist and drops her skirt to the floor. Then she holds out empty hands, palms up, and pivots slowly, offering him a full view of her naked body, and the large rug of black, curly hair that spreads across her mound. She moves closer to him, and to the lamp, and he sees that her eyes are not black, as he has thought at first, but deep blue, the color of lapis, and as impenetrable.

  The woman reaches a small hand between his thighs and strokes his crotch, and his cock responds with an immediate erection. Then she reaches for his sword belt. Instinctively, he knocks her hand away and shoves her across the room. She staggers, then catches her balance and walks in mincing steps toward the bedding in the corner, where she lies down on her back and smiles.

  Amphimedes goes to the entrance to say he is not to be disturbed. The guard fire burns brightly, but unattended. His immediate impulse is to find the derelict soldier, have him punished. Then he glances back at the woman, who makes a kiss with her lips. She thrusts her hips at him and rubs herself between the thighs. Amphimedes removes his helmet, then unstraps his sword and shrugs out of his tunic. He starts to kick off his sandals, then thinks better of it. Her only interest in his penis might be as a trophy to nail to her wall. She is unknown, and so she may be dangerous.

  The thought that she might want to kill him excites him. Approaching the bed, he lays his sword carefully to one side, close enough for him to reach if he needs it, but out of the woman’s grasp.

  “What is your name?” he asks, as he stands over her. She smiles, and holds her index finger to her lips, then tugs him to her by his penis. His style with women is crude and simple—poke them, and finish them—but he seems not to manage that with this one. His cock fails to find a place, and then it stops mattering as she begins to do things to him with her lips, and te
eth, and fingernails. His body fills with the pressure of passion, his breathing coming faster and faster, and his heart pounding so loud that he can hear it, and feel it when she presses against his chest. Finally, when he is sure he cannot stand it any more, she lets him in, wraps her vagina around him, and squeezes him in flowing waves, her own mouth open now, showing small, white teeth. Her eyes trap his, and he feels like a bird hypnotized by a snake, unable to look away.

  He feels orgasm coming, and as he begins to reach the point of inevitability, she digs her nails into his scalp, pulls his head down and bites his lower lip, hard enough that he can taste, through the frenzy she has led him to, the salt of his own blood.

  “My name is Death,” she whispers, as he comes with a piercing release that approaches pain. Then real pain arrives, as something sharp and hard penetrates his back, slices into his kidney, then tears up to his heart. He rears back, confused by the agony. The woman stares at him, smiling. He screams, but no sound passes his lips. Then his heart bursts, and he dies.

  Ekhinos stares at the death he has wrought. For a brief eternity everything is frozen—no one moving, or even breathing, and not a sound, except for the incessant cooing of the tiny owls that inhabit every crevice of the island.

  Then the woman rises from the bed, and Amphimedes’ body slides to the floor like a discarded robe. She bends down and pulls the bee pendant over the head of the corpse, which lies wide-eyed on its back, one shoulder raised, where the hilt of the dagger holds it off the ground, as if in protest.

  Ekhinos extends a sticky hand. “Give it to me.”

  The woman shakes her head and smiles. She holds the pendant behind her, and with her other hand, grasps Ekhinos’ wrist. “We aren’t finished,” she says. She licks blood from his fingers, and Ekhinos feels a wink of desire. He wonders if he might not have her, as well as the bee, before the night ends.

  She drops his wrist and drapes the bee around her neck. “Bring the guard inside,” she says.

  Ekhinos pushes through the curtained entrance and returns moments later, with the guard’s body hanging over his shoulder. The sandal thong he strangled the man with still dangles from the neck.