Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

  Well, we would have been if not for the bellowing bulls. The noise was sleep-murdering. Interestingly, there seemed to be more bulls in the pens than when we first arrived. Peterson and Markham took a casual stroll one evening to try and find out what was happening. There was hospitality – a great deal of hospitality, apparently. Their pathetic attempts to get back up the steep hillside caused some amusement among their watching colleagues, not one of whom went to help.

  They were a little pitiful the next morning, for some reason wanting to stay quietly in one of the pods, but after persistent and ruthless questioning on my part they said they rather thought there might be a big ceremony coming up. This was confirmed by other, subtle clues, on which we, as trained historians, had focused. Without the need to get right royally rat-arsed, as I pointed out in my outdoor voice, just for the fun of watching them flinch.

  The streets of Knossos were being decorated with swags of brightly coloured cloth, probably because there were no flowers and precious little greenery at this time of the year. Once the autumn rains came, everything would bloom again and there would be a second spring, but not at the moment. Not at the tag end of summer.

  We knew the bull-leaping ceremonies happened all the time – several times a week, sometimes, because we could hear the cheering and the bellowing – but they were always private events. As far as I could see, teams were sponsored by the king or the leading families, who staged these events as they jostled for influence and power. Now, however, there was some sort of public ceremony about to happen. It was difficult to know what, exactly. Peterson, still averting his eyes from direct sunlight, rather thought a new bull was about to be dedicated to the god. Or possibly the goddess. And could I pass him some water so he didn’t have to open his eyes.

  It seemed everyone would be going. The days echoed to the sound of hammering as wooden stands and viewing balconies were put up around the Central Courtyard. These would be for the rich and important people. Lesser people and St Mary’s would stand on any available flat roof.

  The day dawned. Unsurprisingly it was hot again. Very, very hot. We’d noticed that sometimes clouds would gather on the horizon to the north. Big, white, fluffy things, but they never came anywhere near us. We were actually in the market one day – listening to the conversations around us and trying to compare words to actions so that we could attempt to decipher at least a small part of the language – recording and sweating in equal measure – when a tiny wisp of cloud, the only one in the sky for weeks, drifted across the surface of the sun. It was such an unusual event that everyone looked up. No such excitement today. The deep blue sky was unsullied. I decided I would never complain about rain again.

  We were up early. Not because the ceremony started early, but so that we could get a good position. Jumping back more than three and a half thousand years and then missing a key event because you didn’t get up early enough for a good view never goes down well with Dr Bairstow. We arrived around mid-morning, just as the sun ceased to be hot and became molten. All this had been thought of, however; awnings had been erected over most of the town. That didn’t reduce the temperature much but at least we were out of the sun, and there must have been a slight breeze off the sea because every now and then the awnings stirred themselves and flapped sluggishly.

  We found ourselves a good position on a large, flat roof. I’d been a bit worried about trespassing, but apparently roofs were common ground. You just chose one, nodded politely to anyone else already in occupation, defined your territory by dropping your possessions everywhere and made yourself comfortable.

  We enjoyed our picnic – fruit, cheese and high-energy biscuits mostly – no meat in this heat – munching with one hand and getting shots of people gradually filling up the surrounding rooftops with the other. We had to eat as soon as we arrived. Food went off very quickly in that heat. Despite our coldcups, our water would get warmer and warmer as well. Peterson swore he was going to bring a tea bag one day and see if he couldn’t get a decent cup of tea out of it.

  We were surrounded by a reasonable cross section of the population. Men and women in equal numbers, together with their children, mostly in large family groups extending over three generations. Initially, we’d remarked on how few elderly people were present. There was a sprinkling of grey hair among the crowds but not as much as we had expected. Did they stay at home because of the heat? Were they too infirm to climb up to the roofs? Was the life expectancy short and no one achieved old age? Or – and this was the theory we went with in the end – was defying ageing as big a business then as it is now? Close-ups showed discrepancies between wrinkled faces and glossy black hair, shiny with oil and perfumes. The Minoans dyed their hair and covered their faces in make-up in the usual vain effort to turn back the clock.

  You couldn’t blame them. They were a very good-looking people. For the most part, their features were strong and regular – in both sexes. They had heavy, well-defined eyebrows, thickened with kohl, I suspected; clear olive skin and very large, dark eyes. Their noses were straight and narrow and their mouths wide and full-lipped and, like the Egyptians, both sexes wore make-up.

  They were clean, as well. There were a lot of people around us and it was a hot day and no one smelled any worse than you would expect.

  But the most noticeable thing about the Minoans was their posture. Look at their representations of themselves – their art, their friezes, their pottery. All of them, even the women, are the same. Tiny waists, with chest and bottoms protruding. I’d thought it was the house style, but I’d been wrong. This wasn’t as pronounced in real life as it was in their art – obviously they’d airbrushed themselves – but it was there all the same. Chest and buttocks jutting in the familiar Minoan style. This was their stance. A proud, confident stance. I wondered whether art followed life or vice versa.

  I was sitting by a well one afternoon, just watching people come and go because that’s one of the best ways to learn about them, and I couldn’t miss the way they were standing. I puzzled over it for quite a while. It didn’t look comfortable. Why would they do it?

  And then a pregnant woman wandered past. She’d come from the potters’ quarter and was leading a small donkey with panniers stuffed full of pots. She was talking to a friend and was standing quite normally. I stared for a while and then I had it. She wasn’t wearing the wide metal belt so fashionable among Minoans at the moment. The one that cinched them in really hard. Hard enough for some of them to look as if they had waist measurements in single figures.

  I couldn’t believe it. Had I really solved the riddle? Could it really be that simple? The traditional Minoan pose was caused by their need to have the fashionable tiny waist?

  Obviously, none of St Mary’s had gone down the metal belt route. We needed our internal organs in full working order. And in approximately the right place.

  Even without the wasp-waist though, we looked about as different from the indigenous population as it was possible to look. This didn’t seem to cause them any problems at all. Everyone was welcome on Crete because everyone was a potential customer. Everyone had something to offer and a smiling Minoan would happily relieve you of it. On favourable terms, of course. The whole time we were there we never encountered hostility of any kind. They were accustomed to seeing foreign faces everywhere. We were just a few more.

  The Central Courtyard, not normally open to the public, stretched before us. Beneath us were the palace storerooms, administration offices, the treasury, workshops housing weavers, potters, scribes, metalworkers and so on. I looked down at my feet and wondered what we were standing on.

  We were on the western side, looking east. A good position – we wouldn’t have the sun in our eyes. And a bad position because we seemed to be on the same side as what looked like the royal box – a big affair decked out in blues, purples and gold – and we wouldn’t be able to record the occupants from this angle.

  Kal
and Clerk stared thoughtfully and then announced their intention of trying to get themselves a better spot on the other side. I warned them to stay in touch. Peterson warned them not to fall off the roof or drink untreated water. Markham warned them to take Evans with them. Evans warned them he was prone to sudden blackouts whenever he was too far off the ground and eventually they departed.

  We sat quietly and waited because it was too hot to do anything else, but there was plenty to see.

  The Central Courtyard was enormous which I found reassuring. Markham’s measurements put it at around one hundred and eighty feet long and eighty-five feet wide. I’d worried this would be a few people pitted against an enormous bull in a tiny space with no room for them to manoeuvre and certainly no room for a display of bull-leaping. That, over the centuries, the whole thing had degenerated into nothing more than a token ceremony to the gods, its original purpose forgotten. That just because the art of the time showed bull-leaping didn’t mean it actually happened. We had no idea what to expect. A stylised ritual? A bullfight? A bloodbath?

  Construction of the wooden stands had made an arena about twelve or fifteen feet deep and the usual paving had been covered in a thick layer of fine, white sand. Slaves must have been up all night carting it in. I wondered where they’d got it from.

  I stared down at the courtyard. Legends say that over the centuries, new palace had been built on top of old palace and I wondered if, beneath our feet, there really was a labyrinth of forgotten rooms below ground level. The stands looked prefabricated to me. Perhaps they were stored underground as well, to be brought up and assembled as required.

  Wreaths of greenery that must surely have been grown especially for the occasion hung at regular intervals around the stands, with long, blue, purple and gold ribbons woven through. The arena walls were sheer. Once in, there was no way out except through the hefty double wooden doors at either end.

  We looked down over the stands, packed with Minoan nobility. They were colourful and noisy – like a pack of starlings – all dressed in their best, chattering and laughing at the tops of their voices. Fringed awnings sheltered them from the sun but the women still had slaves holding their parasols, together with wine, bowls of sweet things, and their pet monkeys and parrots. I grinned. Just wait till they shit all over you, lady. Or try to bite your earrings off.

  I was trying to estimate numbers and composition. At the end of my rough calculations, I rather thought there were about one hundred and fifty people in each stand, with more women present than men, which was interesting. They didn’t sit quietly, either. They chatted to any man within earshot, often shouting over the heads of those sitting close to them in a manner that would never have been tolerated elsewhere. There was none of the modesty expected of mainland Greek women who had no say in their lives, were barely allowed out of their own homes and often weren’t given enough to eat because women were second-class citizens and were therefore only entitled to second-class rations. This bunch here would have had your eye out if you’d tried that on them. They shouted, laughed, ate snacks, drank wine, ordered their servants around and generally carried on as if they owned the place. Which, since women were property owners in their own right, they might well do.

  They were all fashionably dressed and beautifully turned out because, of course, this was all about them and not the bulls at all. The favourite Cretan blue was everywhere, especially in their bodices and blouses. Their tiered skirts were boned to stand away from their bodies and, by the sound of it, many had little bells sewn into the flounces so they tinkled with every movement. Their headdresses were delicate structures of silver and gold, worn high on their heads with long dangly bits either side of their face. Again, they tinkled.

  Most young men wore the traditional kilts, designed to show off their chest and legs. Their slaves must have spent hours with a pumice stone because other than their long, glossy black locks and dark eyebrows, the men were completely hairless. They were well muscled, too. Whether it was fashionable to spend hours in a Cretan gym or they were emulating the bull-leaper look, it was pretty impressive all the same.

  I looked around at the happy, chattering throng. Everyone on holiday and having a great time. This is the downside of our job. To know that in less than a month, all this would be gone. Yes, they would rebuild, but it would never be the same again. The Mycenaeans would seize their chance and that would be the end of Minoan dominance and the beginning of the rise of the mainland. Sad, but that’s the way it is. All empires fall sooner or later. I’ve said it before – a large part of our job is watching people die. We read of these events in the History books and it’s all a comfortably long time ago. And yes, I know – out of destruction comes new beginnings – other people have their chance to flourish – but, it’s not easy to watch. Nor should it be.

  Around noon, half a dozen almost naked slaves filed into what we guessed was the royal box and began to plump cushions, lay out refreshments, assemble those giant feathery fans and generally panic over approaching royalty.

  I opened my com and called up Kalinda.

  ‘Got a good view here,’ she said, shortly. ‘Don’t bother me in case I miss something.’

  ‘I knew it,’ I said. ‘Your old skills have deserted you, haven’t they? You should have got Security to do your recording for you. Why didn’t you ask Evans?’

  Something was about to happen and I never caught her response. The crowd was craning its neck. The buzz of excitement increased. People began to stand up. Here we go.

  I thought the king would make his way through the palace and appear at the back of the royal box, but that didn’t happen at all. The big wooden double gates at the south end swung open – quite lightly by the looks of them. I made a note to ask Dieter about balances and hinges and things.

  The crowd murmured with excitement and craned their necks for a better look. Someone was coming.

  The gates opened from darkness. Out here, the light was so bright there was no chance of seeing what was on the other side. Which might be deliberate.

  There was an ear-splitting and discordant blast from a dozen brass instruments and, preceded by some ten or twelve guards, resplendent in polished breastplates, greaves and helmets, here he came. King Minos himself, although which particular Minos was anyone’s guess. All their kings were Minos. It was a title, like Pharaoh or Caesar.

  He walked slowly, giving people time to see him properly. And he was worth seeing. In fact, he was magnificent. He glittered in the brilliant sunshine. Four near naked slaves held a golden canopy over his head. The fringes swung as they walked. He was swathed from chin to toe in a magnificent golden robe. In this age of male almost nudity, that was unusual.

  He wasn’t old. I could tell that because of the way he moved. Other than that, I couldn’t say, because he wore a massive golden mask, so big and heavy it rested on his shoulders. I could only imagine the weight of it. The mask covered his entire head. I could just see a fringe of dark hair hanging down his back.

  The face was that of a great bull.

  I assumed the mask was partly to prevent unworthy eyes falling upon the face of the king and partly to ensure continuity and stability because no one would ever know when one king ended and another began. A good idea. The king could seem immortal. In fact – and I don’t know where this thought came from – this might not even be the real king at all. If he was old, infirm, sick, it wouldn’t matter. Here was the golden canopy, the golden robe, the golden bull mask – therefore this must be the king.

  The head of a bull had been beautifully reproduced. The detail was amazing. The eyes were hollow – just black holes. A reminder that below the golden mask there was a man. There were even horns, glittering with jewels. Heaven only knows how much that lot weighed. And in this heat, too.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Peterson, next to me. ‘Do you think this is where the Pasiphae sleeping with the bull legend originated? Coul
d it have been some sort of ritual coupling? He wearing the mask and the queen in her role as High Priestess, and it became distorted over time.’

  ‘Could be.’

  Minos walked slowly to the centre of the courtyard and halted. The four slaves carrying the canopy halted as well. With all that gold in all that bright sunshine it was as if the sun god himself had come down to walk among us.

  The crowd fell silent. No one moved. Not even the king, waiting under his golden canopy.

  The gates at the other end, the northern end, swung open.

  There was another fanfare and this time, preceded by a dozen handmaidens, the priestess entered the arena. Interesting. She entered second, but he waited for her. What did that mean?

  She wore blue and gold – an almost Egyptian colour scheme. Her golden diadem was nearly twelve inches high. Beneath it, her long, tightly curled black locks fell halfway down her back. She was bare-breasted and bare-faced but she glowed in the sun. I suspected she’d been dusted with gold powder. She wore the sacral knot under her breasts and her flounced skirt stood stiffly from her body. Again, there were little bells sewn into the flounces. I could hear the tinkle from all the way up here.

  She was younger than I expected. Barely more than a child. I wondered if perhaps she was one of the king’s daughters. That made sense. Keep conflict between state and church to a minimum.

  Both king and priestess waited, unmoving. Two enormous slaves approached, carrying the giant double-headed axe – the Labrys. Sir Arthur Evans interpreted the word Labyrinth as deriving from Labrys – hence the House of the Double Axe – but subsequent investigation has revealed it might be associated with the goddess. Mother Labrys herself. I was standing on tiptoe with excitement. Which of them would claim the axe?