Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

  There was complete silence. All chatter had ceased. The only sound was an occasionally flapping awning. Everyone made the sign of respect, bowing their heads.

  King and priestess faced each other. They were of about equal height but her ornate headdress made her taller. They were about six feet apart and motionless. Everyone waited. But for what?

  Once again the gates opened and two slaves led out a young male calf. Not a big one. This was a pretty little thing, white as new snow with gilded hoofs and a garland around his neck. He was the sacrifice.

  He was also drugged. They wouldn’t want any trouble at an important ceremony like this. Head lowered, he was led slowly across the smooth sand to stand between the priestess and the king. The garland was carefully removed. Nothing must impede the smooth stroke of the axe as the covenant between god and people was renewed. The only question was – who would make the sacrifice?

  The two slaves presented the axe.

  The king shrugged off his robe. It lay in a golden pool around his feet. Apart from a tiny kilt, he was naked underneath. He reached out. Ah, right. The king would make the sacrifice. The great axe was the symbol of the priestess – the sign of great power – but the sacrifice itself would be made by the king. A very neat compromise.

  He flexed his quite considerable muscles, took hold of the axe in both hands, planted his feet, cried aloud – to the Mother, presumably – and swung.

  A great fountain of scarlet blood arced high into the air. Across the king, the priestess, their attendants, the guards, everyone. The crowd roared. We surmised this was a lucky omen.

  There was an indefinable sound that might have been the calf’s last breath or a sigh of satisfaction from the goddess and then slowly, the beast sagged to his knees and from there to the ground, a huge scarlet pool spreading around him.

  The king returned the axe – I noticed it took two slaves to lift it, let alone wield it.

  The robe lay where it had fallen, the blood slowly seeping into it. Crimson and gold just lying in the sand. Now there was a statement for you. We are Crete. We take the treasures of lesser men and leave them to lie in the dust. This is Minos of Crete and he rules with the blessing of the Mother. I was impressed.

  In complete silence, the couple moved slowly across the sand and mounted the steps to the royal box. At some point, the king’s courtiers had turned up and the box was packed. I’d been so enthralled by what was going on in the arena I’d missed their arrival, but the others would have recorded it.

  The two thrones were set level with each other. The priestess – because this was the land of the Mother. And the king – because he ruled with her blessing.

  Once again, the Minoan people bowed their heads and made the sign of respect. The royal couple seated themselves. After a heartbeat, their courtiers did the same. At no point in the cere­mony did the king take off his mask. Her face, on the other hand, was in full view for everyone to see. She had the usual strong Cretan features and I was now certain they’d dusted her with gold because even in the shade, she still glowed.

  At this point I gave up craning my neck because now the couple were obscured from my view by other courtiers. I would concentrate on what was happening in front of me and leave the celebs to Kal and Clerk.

  The ceremony began with music. Flutes, pipes, cymbals, drums, lovely light floating music, wonderful to listen to and a necessary distraction while slaves towed the dead calf out of the ring. One carefully picked up the robe – would they clean and reuse it, or would they throw it away? Or would it be preserved as a religious relic? I had a vision of a chest, deep in the bowels of the palace – deep in the labyrinth – where bloodstained robes slowly rotted away and flies buzzed.

  Slaves brought in fresh sand and as soon as the ring was pristine again, the acrobats entered. Running, jumping, tumbling. Mostly men but some women. They were all virtually naked and one or two of them had nasty scars, especially across their ribs. Were they old bull-leapers, perhaps? Or were there no old bull-leapers? Did they all die in the arena? Eventually.

  The afternoon breeze began to pick up as the wind came in off the sea. Life became marginally cooler. No one was much interested in the acrobats. Chatter rose around us. I suppose this was the Bronze Age equivalent of checking your phone before the main event. Obviously, we were all paying close attention to what was going on in front of us but we appeared to be the only ones.

  Peterson turned to me. I could see the sweat prickling his brow and top lip. ‘Why hold the ceremony at this time of year, I wonder?’

  ‘Because it’s the mating season?’

  ‘Is it?’ said Roberts, smiling down at Sykes and thoroughly pissing off Bashford.

  ‘For the bulls. What did you think has been keeping us awake every night?’

  ‘Bulls getting their leg over?’

  ‘Bulls not getting their leg over.’

  ‘Seems a bit unfair,’ said Roberts. ‘They buy their girl a drink and just as they’re about to reap the benefits of all that exhausting foreplay, they’re dragged away to entertain the public. Bet that puts them in a sunny mood.’

  ‘I suspect that’s the whole point,’ I said. ‘We might want to brace ourselves for blood.’

  The acrobats withdrew. Silence fell. The silence of anticipation. I looked around at the gaily decorated stands. The colourful crowd. Slaves appeared again, placing gilded containers of what looked like a fine white powder at regular intervals around the arena.

  ‘For their hands,’ I said, suddenly enlightened. ‘So they don’t lose their grip.’

  The fanfare blared again, the gates opened as smoothly as before and a team of seven people entered. I wondered if this was the basis of the legend. Seven young people taken from their home every year to be sacrificed to the Minotaur.

  The crowd went wild – as they say. The team marched in single file around the arena, gracefully acknowledging the cheers.

  There were five girls and two boys. I say girls and boys because they were all teenagers. I suspect not one of them was over eighteen. If that. All were naked except for a linen loincloth and high, gilded leather boots that came up over their calves. From head to toe, their bodies had been dusted with the same golden powder as the priestess. Except for their hands, which were white.

  There were no lovelocks here. All of them had their hair tied tightly back in a big knot at the nape of their neck, their foreheads bare. It looked strange when the fashion was for long, flowing hair, but I could see the sense. Fashion was for lesser mortals. These people needed to be able to see.

  The crowd was erupting with excitement, waving and cheering them on. Apart from that brief initial acknowledgement, the team completely ignored them. Little better than performing animals they might be – insignificant people who risked their lives for the entertainment of their supposed betters – but nothing could dent the massive contempt in which they obviously held their audience. They walked around the ring, quiet and withdrawn, psyching themselves up for what was to come.

  Gathering round in a circle, they stood for one moment, then, as one, dropped to a crouch. Placing both hands flat on the ground, they bowed their heads. Were they calling on the Mother’s protection? Or Poseidon? To watch over them in the arena, or send them a placid bull? Although given the shouts and bellows and crashes emanating from behind the wooden gates, that seemed unlikely.

  The clamour increased. I could hear a dull, booming noise as if something really big and heavy was throwing itself against the wooden doors.

  The team dealt with it by ignoring it, stretching, bending and jumping on the spot. These would be their warm-up exercises, as they prepared themselves mentally and physically for the bull. And the possibility of a violent and bloody death. With graceful ease they turned lazy somersaults and cartwheels, still ignoring the screaming crowd around them. Some women blew kisses and threw flowers into the ring. No o
ne made any move to pick them up.

  All the team were small and slightly built but the two boys seemed to be the strength of the team. They were stockier and more muscular. They were the ones who threw the lighter girls through the air and caught them on landing. Their hands were caked white with the powder all the way up their elbows.

  Interestingly, it was the team who called the shots. It seemed to be for them to decide when their warm-up was completed. There was no signal that I could see, but suddenly they ran lightly across the arena and lined up in front of the royal box. One girl stepped forwards and raised her arm in salute – whether to the king or the priestess or both was unclear from where we were standing.

  The crowd roared once and then fell silent. The team moved equally silently and ranged themselves in a half circle, bouncing lightly on their feet, arms slightly away from their sides, ready, waiting for whatever came through the big wooden doors at the other end. There was a huge air of anticipation. People leaned forwards in their seats, craning their necks for their first glimpse of the bull.

  32

  At one and the same time, I have both the best and the worst job in the world. I’ve seen things no one else ever will. I’ve witnessed the most amazing spectacles. I saw the black ships at Troy. I saw our ancestors as they crossed the Gates of Grief. I talked with Mary Stuart. I’ve witnessed scenes exploding from the shadows of myths and legends to play out in front of me. When world-changing events have occurred, I’ve been there.

  That’s the plus side of my job, but for every good there is a bad. If asked to describe my job in three words I would have to say, ‘Watching people die.’ Because that’s what it all boils down to. I watch people die.

  I tell myself that most of it happened a very long time ago. That everyone dies sooner or later, whether I’m there to witness it or not. For all I know, one day an historian will turn up to witness my death. Although I think I might be overstating my importance slightly.

  But, it’s not pleasant. You could question my motives for doing this job – and occasionally, after a particularly rough assignment, I do – because sometimes, dreadful things happen. But, as I tell myself, dreadful things do not cease to happen because we look away. Someone has to bear witness. Someone has to remember . . .

  And now, here I was in Crete, at one of the most spectacular ceremonies of the ancient world. Cretan bull-leaping. Would it be an amazing spectacle or bloody carnage? It could go either way and I had no way of knowing. At that moment I was the Schrödinger’s cat of History. Well, no – but you know what I mean.

  The wooden doors swung out into the arena. The same black darkness lurked behind. For a moment nothing happened. The moment stretched on endlessly. How must it have felt to those young people in the ring? And then, with an ear-splitting roar, part bellow, part scream, a huge bull burst from out of the darkness and into the brilliantly lit arena. As if he had erupted into this world from under the earth. I suspected the whole thing was elaborately stage managed to give just that impression. A man with a very sharp stick, I suspected.

  He was a big bugger. The bull, I mean. A big, big bugger. His coat gleamed a dark, glossy reddish brown with darker legs and head. His head and shoulders were massive. Well, all of him was massive, but his head and shoulders especially so. There was an odd patch of white on his left flank. The mark of the goddess, perhaps. His horns, gold-tipped for the occasion, grew sideways out of his skull and then upwards again, ending in those wicked golden points. I wondered if the wide space between his horns made him a particularly good bull to work with. His horns were thicker than my arm and they must have been easily three feet long. He wore a garland of flowers and ribbons around his neck. Given the temper he was in, I couldn’t see that lasting long.

  He paused in the middle of the ring, looking around, getting his bearings. Staring with his little black, beady eyes. The whites were shot through with red blood. Tendrils of long mucusy dribble swung from his nose. He looked at the bull-leapers and the bull-leapers responded by moving apart, circling him as he stood watching them.

  Without warning, before he knew what was happening, two girls ran forwards and vaulted across his back, one from one side and one from the other. Their movements were beautifully synchronised. They crossed exactly at the mid-point on the bull’s broad back. Their golden bodies arced through the air and then they were on the ground again. A perfect, gymnast’s dismount. The crowd clapped politely.

  I spoke into my com. ‘Are we getting all this?’

  A series of disjointed grunts indicated the History Department hard at work.

  The bull was annoyed. I think his dignity had been affronted. He snorted another mucusy tendril and lumbered forwards, aiming for the nearest bull-leaper – another girl, darker and taller than the other two.

  She ran forwards, arms pumping hard, her footsteps barely audible in the sand. The bull finally seemed to wake up and lowered his horns. As he did so, the girl leaped over his head, between his wide-set horns, somersaulting and landing with her legs astride the bull’s wide shoulders. From there she brought up her legs and somersaulted again, curving over the bull’s back to land on her feet some two feet behind him as he travelled briskly in the wrong direction. The two catchers stood either side to steady her as she landed but they weren’t required. The girl was a master. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  They all did. They were experts. I wondered how many times they performed this show. Every week? They must surely practise every day to keep their edge.

  The crowd roared. This was more like it. The girl ran to join her colleagues who were weaving around the bull, twisting and turning in a kind of dance that confused him to such an extent that he had to stand still again to think about it.

  This was the pattern for the next quarter of an hour. Dance around the bull, confuse him and then dart in with yet another daring jump. It looked spectacular but I was guessing this was the easy part. The purpose was to wear him out, to take the edge off him and then build to the big finish.

  The bull grew more and more irritated. Foam dripped from his mouth. He was hot, bothered and definitely not happy. Sensing this, they all converged on him. All at the same time. The crowd shouted their appreciation. This was a gymnastic display. They were using this mighty bull as a vaulting horse. One . . . two . . . three . . . four of them flew through the air, somersaulting in mid-flight to land lightly in the sand.

  Again, the bull halted and looked around. He was beginning to lose his temper. And his dignity. He was being made a fool of. Dirty foam dribbled on to the sand. His eyes held a red glare. He’d been taken from his home. He was hot. He was in this place. There were no girl cows. He wasn’t happy.

  He bellowed – a fearsome sound in this enclosed space, the echoes bouncing off the walls. Now he began to paw the ground, raising great clouds of sand into the already dusty atmosphere. The crowd roared again. This was what they’d been waiting for.

  The bull-leapers ran around again, getting themselves in ­position. They’d been at it for over half an hour, giving a non-stop show of grace and precision. Never mind tiring the bull. Fit though they were, they must be tiring. One wrong move . . .

  Now, one by one, they leaped. One after the other they curled themselves into neat balls and somersaulted over the bull’s back. Only a single stride between each of them. When they’d finished, they ran around to the front and did it all again.

  But the bull had learned. He’d learned that a frontal charge was just what they wanted. You could see him thinking. Working things out.

  The crowd was cheering. I could see people clustered together in groups passing something between them. I wondered if they were betting. On what would they bet? How long the team could last? How many successful leaps they would make? How many would die?

  I could hear the bull’s thudding hoofbeats as he charged at his tormentors, but they were so light on their feet that the
ir footfalls were lost in the clamour of the crowd, who were roaring encouragement with every leap. I don’t know for how long they continued to run at him, but, at no signal that I could see, they halted and drew back against the high wooden walls, leaving him alone, flanks heaving, in the centre of the ring.

  The team took no time to regain their breath, running to the buckets and rubbing clouds of powder on their hands and arms. That done, they moved quietly around the outside of the arena to encircle the bull. He stood, his massive head lowered, his legs splayed, waiting, swinging his head to keep them all in sight.

  I felt a prickle on my neck. He was still angry but his first fury had passed. Now he was cold and calm and deadly. He’d always been deadly but they’d taken his anger and used it against him. He’d learned not to make the first move. Now he waited for them.

  The crowd was shouting encouragement. This must be the finale. The . . . team captain . . . I suppose I should call her, raised her right arm in salute. Silence fell. The bull stood unmoving. I could hear his snorting pants.

  And then they all moved at once. One after the other, the whole team ran for the bull. Straight for the horns. The first dived through the horns to land on his broad back and then in the same movement, up and over his tail. As she bounced off, the second, one of the boys, was already diving through the horns and the third one was already running. Absolute trust in your teammates and split-second timing was essential. There was no room for even the smallest error.

  They made an error.

  As the boy dived through the horns, his hand slipped. Perhaps he turned his wrist, I don’t know, but his hand skidded and he fell to one side and hung there. The second girl, already arcing through the horns, landed partly on top of him. The third, already running, had nowhere to go.