by Laura Gill
Knos’s eyes watered from the smoke. The first lungful he took forced a spasm of coughing. He let the curtain fall and got down on the floor with his family. Gods, how were they going to escape? The children were coughing, holding rags to their faces to ameliorate the stifling smoke.
In the fire-glow, Knos suddenly saw his first wife bound to the back of the sleeping room and heave her weight against the wall. “Grab something heavy!” she croaked. “Punch a hole!” Everyone stood frozen, caught between the stinging smoke and the terror of the flames devouring the next room.
“MOVE!” Knos’s roar ended in a painful coughing fit. Would he even have the breath to do what needed to be done? His stone axe rested near the pallet. Eyes stinging, his throat raw, he fumbled for it in the flickering semi-darkness, then, stumbling over pallets and discarded animal skin blankets, he found his way over to Urope. She was already hammering and tearing apart the wall plaster with her bare hands.
Nudging her aside, he smashed the granite axe-head into the plaster; the shock of the impact concussed straight through his arms into his shoulders. He felt and heard the plaster crack, smelled the dust mingling with the smoke coming from the main room, but in the semi-light it did not seem he had done much damage.
Then, cursing himself, he realized the problem. Every year in the late summer, every household re-plastered its mudbrick walls and ceilings with a mix of clay and limestone, each layer solidifying as a thin shell over the previous ones to protect the soluble mudbrick. Knos’s house was almost twenty years old, and his kinsmen made certain the plaster was fresh every year. He struck again and again. “BREAK!” he hollered at the plaster.
His shout frightened the youngest children. There was no time to reassure them, to explain what he was doing; he did not have the breath for it. Another blow, another layer breached, but it was going too slowly, and though the fire had not yet reached the back room it was getting harder to breathe. Let the gods watch over him. He had heard of men being overcome by smoke before the fire ever reached them. Let Potnidu grant him strength enough to make a hole large enough to push the youngest...
A crash from the main room sent fresh panic coursing through him. The younger children squealed. Knos felt a sudden rush of heat, the shadows brightened, and he realized that something had collapsed. Let it not be the rafters or roof. He kept hitting the wall with the axe. The mudbrick gave once he got through the plaster. He felt a breath of fresh air, but the hole was not big enough.
“Mother!” One of his daughters—he did not see who—shoved forward to push something into Urope’s hands. It was a wooden cudgel. She seized it, shoved him aside, and swung at the wall once, then again and again
“Melit...squeeze out,” she huffed, smothering a cough. “She can...take the youngest.” But Knos’s third daughter was sobbing, refusing to budge in her terror. Hariana was going to have to physically shove her through the hole.
“Knos!” A husky masculine voice shouted from outside. “KNOS!” An arm reached through the gap. “Is everybody with you?”
Knos clutched Abbek’s fingers. He could see his cousin’s face, and the suggestion of activity beyond him. He strove to suck in whatever fresh air he could from the opening, but could not stop choking. “The door...blocked.”
“Stand back!”
Abbek began hitting the wall from without—no, he had others with him—and within moments layers of mudbrick and plaster gave away. “Come on!” he hollered, gesturing.
Knos grabbed the nearest child, pushed him into his kinsman’s arms. The fire was eating the plaster wall five feet behind him; a curtain of flame licked the doorway. Hariana went with Melit and the youngest. Astaryas had a sister, Orana a younger brother. Fidra hustled young Knos ahead of her. Urope grabbed the last child and a sheepskin, and dashed out into the summer night. Knos was the last to leave, after snatching his shoes.
Sailors and kinsmen swamped them with blankets and water. Everyone was choking from the smoke. Retching, his chest and airway aching from the constant coughing, Knos shut his eyes till the stinging in his eyes passed. He heard men giving orders, then stone axes knocking against mudbrick and water splashing upon plaster. It was too late to save his house. The men were trying to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby dwellings.
“You’re not the only one.” Abbek was talking in his ear, with a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Menuash’s house burned, too, but he’s all right, him and his parents. We’ve got them on the beach.”
Which was where Knos shepherded his stunned and disheveled family, after giving his sandals to Fidra. The sand and gravel were cold under his feet, but his men had a bonfire going between the two ships, and Menuash’s aged mother was heating leftover gruel in a clay vessel. She fussed over the children, and settled them next to her with comforting words, never mind the makeshift bandages binding her forehead and upper arms where she had been injured.
When Knos glanced back toward the village, he saw to his amazement the glowing of fires—he counted five of them—all burning in the Bull Clan quarter. Menuash organized everything. He assigned sentries, delegated rescue parties, and dispatched messengers. Roused by the general hue-and-cry, more than two dozen families, some of them neighbors from the Goat and Cypress Clans, trickled onto the beach with their bundled belongings.
Men from those clans joined the fight against the fires without demur, grabbing clay vessels that the women and older children filled with seawater. Knos watched men from the Deer Clan bearing the injured. He should have been up and helping them, but his eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and though his coughing had subsided his throat was so raw he could scarcely speak. Someone had given him water to drink; it helped a little.
“Pashki’s badly burned,” a man’s voice said at his elbow. Half-turning, Knos recognized Iroas, the chieftain of the Goat Clan. “Some of his family...” Iroas slowly shook his head, expressing his condolences. Pashki was a young oarsman aboard Dolphin.
Knos scanned the village horizon. The blazes were scattered, without a wind to drive the sparks, without reason, save one. This was no accidental fire started by the careless dropping of a lamp or by a wayward spark from someone’s hearth, but a deliberate act.
“My brothers?” Knos needed to know who else besides him, Menuash, and Pashki might have been targeted. Neither Aramo nor Rauda, nor their immediate families had come to the ships. Either they were on their way, or... Knos pushed back the thought.
Iroas could tell him nothing. Knos signaled his thanks for the man’s help and went to see his oarsman.
The man lying on a makeshift pallet under Dolphin’s prow was unrecognizable. Pashki had been young and handsome an hour ago. Now his abundant hair had been burned away, and the flesh of his face and hands reduced to raw meat. He groaned hoarsely, incomprehensible animal sounds of agony. Knos did not know whether he understood that he was dying or that his aged mother and three of his children were already dead, their charred bodies lying under blankets nearby; his wife had died in childbirth last year. But for the favor of the gods, that might have been Knos’s own family. An angry knot had formed in Knos’s belly. Whoever had done this evil, whoever had sent Pashki and his defenseless old mother and children to the hereafter would pay.
“Gods go with you,” Knos rasped. He could not even touch the man to bestow the traditional blessing.
He stayed at the young man’s side until Pashki gasped out his final, agonized breath. It did not take long.
The fires were extinguished by dawn, but a smoky haze tasting of ashes, burnt wood and plaster hung over the village. Families unaffected brought spare clothing, food, and other necessities for those who had lost their homes. Yawning and bleary-eyed, Dravan finally appeared. Had no one awakened him earlier? How could anyone have slept through the chaos? He examined the dead and injured, made some sympathetic noises, but answered no questions and did not linger.
“That man,” Iroas quietly observed, “is useless.”
“So I�
��ve said many times.” Knos’s head ached. Only now, when he had time to rest and reflect, did the shock of the night’s events hit him. That his enemies would attempt to kill him was not surprising. That they would stoop to murder his wives and children along with him? Unconscionable. He was shaking, shivering under the blanket someone had given him. The arsonists would pay. Somehow, he vowed, they would pay.
Rauda and his family had come earlier with clothes and food, and the offer of shelter. Knos would not risk his kinsmen’s lives by personally lodging under his brother’s roof, but his children and wives should be safe enough. As for himself, he could make do in a tent aboard his ship.
Later that morning, as Knos felt well enough to relieve Menuash of his duties, Abbek brought news about Aramo. “He and his family are safe, but during the night he killed a man trying to burn his farm.”
Knos left the encampment in Menuash’s charge, but not before Rauda pressed upon him the shoes from his own feet. The leather shoes were somewhat too large for Knos. He filled the gaps with dried sea grass before setting out for his elder brother’s farm with Abbek and two sailors armed with spears and stone axes.
Aramo’s homestead occupied a narrow valley near a common meadow. The entire family was awake, hunched around the hearth, while clan neighbors patrolled outside. A disheveled Aramo greeted Knos upon the threshold of his house, inquired after his family, then quickly escorted him across the muddy yard and into the wattle-and-daub hut where he stored straw, hay, and seed.
A corpse lay facedown on the compacted earth floor. A blow from either a slingshot or stone axe had smashed his right temple, although the damage was not so severe that Knos could not recognize him. “Kardunas,” he muttered, “herdsman of the Octopus Clan.” Abbek took a closer look while wrinkling his nose; the dead man had voided both bladder and bowels.
“What shall we do with him?” Aramo asked.
Knos let the dead herdsman’s head loll to the side. “You actually caught him trying to burn your house?”
“Parnas caught him at the door with the torch in his hand.” Aramo named his eldest son, a sturdy sixteen-year-old. “We heard the dog barking, then strange noises outside. Parnas threw open the door and clubbed the fool with a mace head before he ever knew what hit him. There were at least two others with him, but we never got a decent look at them.” Aramo reached for the threadbare cloth lying across a hay bale, and flung it over the corpse. “I don’t want it getting around that my son slew a man, justified or not. If Octopus men are firing Bull Clan houses and killing babes and grandmothers...”
“To the seven hells with them,” Abbek hissed under his breath. “Let’s dump the corpse at Rabbas’s door.”
Such sentiments were why Aramo had not asked his advice, although it would have served Rabbas right for authorizing a deadly act of arson against his followers. “Let’s be reasonable,” Aramo said. “This is no time for blood feuds. If I wanted violence, I wouldn’t have needed your advice.”
“You’re right,” Knos agreed. “It would be better to leave Kardunas lying on Octopus grazing lands, and make it look like an accident. That way, his kinsmen and Rabbas can’t accuse us of murder without admitting guilt, and they’re not about to do that.”
“Parnas can help me move the body after darkness falls. Not even my wives know what happened.” Aramo glanced anxiously over his shoulder, toward the hide curtain. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. “We need milk and wine for the libation, and we should do it as soon as possible, or Kardunas’s ghost will lead his kinsmen to us.”
On the way back, Knos and his companions encountered a procession of Bull clansmen carrying the bodies of the unfortunate Pashki and his family to the silent heights where vultures would pick clean the bones so that they could be cleansed, anointed with wine and milk, and interred in the clan’s sacred burial cave. Giving the dead a generous berth, the men respectfully lowered their gazes. Knos regretted not having been available to volunteer as a pallbearer; he considered it his duty as ship’s captain.
A dozen men from Dolphin accompanied the dead. Yikadi also walked with them, for it was his duty as a singer to summon the dark goddess and the eaters of the dead. Knos swallowed back the knot in his throat, feeling then very cold, very insignificant and powerless. But for the grace of the gods—and the thought kept tormenting him—the pallbearers might have been carrying him and his family.
Upon returning to the beach, Knos relieved Menuash, who was swaying on his feet from exhaustion. The young man seemed to have aged ten years in as many hours. Menuash borrowed a blanket from a neighbor, climbed onto Dolphin’s deck and was snoring before his head even hit the planks.
Urope had organized the women, who would otherwise be milling about gossiping, into teams to cook food, launder soiled clothes, and watch and comfort the children frightened by last night’s catastrophe. Knos examined his own brood for injuries, which he had not thought to do earlier, and spoke a few reassuring words to each.
Astaryas wore a grim countenance, his jaw fixed in quiet anger, as he stared straight ahead, out toward the green-gray waves. Knos had learned in the last few weeks not to expect much warmth from his eldest son.
“You did this,” Astaryas said in a monotone.
“No,” Knos replied, “I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.” Astaryas kept his gaze fixed elsewhere. “You made enemies, and they tried to kill us. All the dead—Pashki and his family—and the burned-out houses, that’s all your—”
Knos cuffed his ear hard enough to elicit a yelp. “That’s enough from you, boy.” Astaryas could resent him all he liked, but his insolence would not be tolerated.
Urope witnessed the exchange on her way back from the cook fire. Her dark brow furrowed when she saw her son’s pained expression and the angry red shell of his ear, but she simply handed her husband his bowl of food and kept her comments to herself.
Knos heartily spooned the warm barley porridge into his mouth with his fingers. Astaryas stood and, without acknowledging either parent, stalked away, toward the carpenters. “He blames me for everything.”
Urope took back the empty bowl. “Maybe,” she grunted, “but then he’s become sour on everything and everyone. Oh, by the way, Iroas had his men erect a tent for us up there.” She indicated Dolphin with a thrust of her chin. Menuash’s snores sawed through the air.
“You don’t need to stay with me,” Knos said. “Surely you’d be much more comfortable with Rauda or—”
“I doubt the ship will be any more comfortable when we finally set out,” she pointed out. “No more arguments, Knos. You need a woman with you to keep you civilized.” Then she arched a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Unless, that is, you plan on seducing some of the sailors’ wives.”
He chuckled. “They’re too wise to my ways.”
Urope brought some animal grease so that Knos could slick his hair back and fasten it into its usual queue. Afterward, he found the Goat Clan chieftain and thanked him for the tent. “To tell you the truth, I never expected you or your clan to be this generous.” Iroas had voted against him during that absurd hearing four weeks ago. Though relations between the clans had continued as before, Knos had not acknowledged him until the night of the fire. “You might find yourself at odds with Shobai and Rabbas over this.”
Iroas considered his answer. “Shobai and his cronies don’t concern me. Your coolness toward me does.” His mouth twitched. “You know better than to hold that judgment against me. I had no choice in that business, because you were guilty in the eyes of the gods of lying with that girl. But if it’s anything to you, I thought the fine was excessive, and I didn’t care for the way Dravan sold you out. A good clan chieftain defends his people no matter what. I don’t blame you for what you’re doing now. I would, too, in your place.”
They parted after clasping arms in friendship. “Potidnu be with you in your venture, Knos,” Iroas said. “Go on, have a look at the tent.” He smiled, casting a meaningful glance towar
d Dolphin. “I believe your wives Fidra and Hariana are up there arranging everything.”
The tent, stretched across the stern where a wooden animal pen had been constructed, was of an excellent quality goat hair greased inside with lard to make it waterproof.
Fidra edged back the tent flap and, smiling, waved him over. “Come inside! Hariana wants to show you something.”
The women had stuffed whatever chinks they found with dried sea grass to protect against drafts, and had fashioned a nest of blankets, but that was not what attracted Knos’s attention. On a makeshift platform, his third wife had arranged the household gods. “I saved them from the fire,” Hariana said proudly.
Being a high priest’s daughter, she instinctively would have grabbed the idols. Knos was both immensely proud of her and ashamed of himself for forgetting about them.
The clay bull represented Potidnu, Lord of the Heavens and Earth-Shaker. Raziya, the revered Great Goddess, was as proud as a female elder, with pendulous breasts and broad hips. Marynos, the blue-haired Lord of the Sea, grasped his fishing spear. Stolid Alauta, an aspect of Raziya who was a protectress of children and pregnant women, nursed an infant at her breast. Families selected other gods for their hearths as needed, but everyone from Melos in the farthest west to the great settlements of the mainland eastward of Rhodes revered the Lord of the Heavens and the Great Goddess.
Each hearth also hosted four other figures, smaller than the gods; these represented members of the household: husband and wife, son and daughter. Knos’s votaries were of age-darkened cypress wood, and stood in an attitude of perpetual reverence, right hands raised to foreheads, palms facing outward, to shield their eyes from the radiance of the gods.
“I was afraid we had lost them.” Knos knelt before the platform, touched his fingers to his lips, then to each of the gods. He bowed his head, praying they did not punish him for forgetting them in the chaos and conflagration, and thanked them for watching over his family. Then he kissed his wives and went out again.