by Laura Gill
Melia ordered it done. “Is there anything else you require, Priestess?” She was a devout and kind woman, certainly far more considerate than the other gaping, gawking women, yet nevertheless the woman kept her distance for fear of pollution. Pasibe understood why. Had it been another who had experienced the lightning omen, she would have commanded Minos’s wife and all others to keep the same distance from the recipient. And yet, in obeying ritual necessity Melia was inadvertently denying Pasibe the substantial comfort the high priestess needed.
After a time, the men came inside to banish the women. Minos ordered the priestesses to go outside and cover the young man with the fine linens Melia had provided, and to guard the corpse until further notice. “People are gathering,” he explained.
Only when all the women had withdrawn and the door was shut again did the chieftain of Knossos address the high priestess. Minos was a tall man with ponderous brows and pronounced cheekbones. His skin was a shade darker than that of most Kaphti, owing to the blood of his grandfather Menes, the Egyptian adventurer who had seized power at Knossos seventy years ago. “Well, Lady Pasibe,” he asked harshly, “what have you done with this one?”
‘This one,’ alluding to her history of past lovers, as though she threw them over like so much chaff when she was finished with them. She flushed with renewed anger. Who was he to question her, whose ancient line had ruled Knossos for untold generations? She was descended from Europa, an Anatolian priestess who had been seduced and brought to Kaphtor by the mighty bull god Potidas, while Minos’s grandfather was nothing but a foreign usurper.
And yet, the question stung her for reasons deeper than pride. “I did not call down the lightning. I did not curse him.” She averted her eyes when she knew she should have admonished Minos for addressing her so disrespectfully in her own house. Had she called down the lightning? Had Sama perished through some agency of hers? Pasibe wished she knew. “I called him back because it was raining. He would have gotten wet and cold.”
“Yet you were heard arguing with him in the moments before the lightning strike,” a senior elder pointed out.
“Men and women argue when they live together,” Pasibe quickly pointed out. “Sama was tired of the rain. He—he wanted to go outdoors, to hunt, to be with his friends.” She did not venture the fact that he wanted to leave her altogether, that he chafed at being the plaything of a woman old enough to be his mother. That was between her and the gods and the young man’s shade.
“Of course, Priestess,” the senior elder, Labarna, said soothingly. “You always lavish your lovers with great care.”
Pasibe heard her brother Asterion snort. “And yet, they always leave.”
Had Minos or anyone else said it, Pasibe would have bowed her head and admitted sadly that the observation was true. As it was among the gods, when Rhaya loved Velchanos, the young Master of the Beasts, the vegetation god, in the spring and summer, and mourned his demise in the autumn and winter, so it was with her priestess. Pasibe’s lovers always left her.
She would not, however, tolerate her brother’s criticism. “And what of it?” she shot back. Her anger gave her the strength to speak. “I’m not sworn to celibacy. I’m a wealthy widow and a high priestess, and if I want to enjoy a comely youth, then that’s my business. Sama was free to come or go as he pleased. I never begrudged him his friends or pastimes. I only wanted him to stay out of the rain, to...” She could not finish the sentence, because she knew there had been more. “I didn’t want him to catch his death of cold.”
Someone—she did not see who—made an acerbic observation, “Well, Sama certainly didn’t die of cold.”
Minos cleared his throat. “Indeed.”
“How dare you speak such blasphemous words in my house!” Pasibe challenged. “Apologize at once to the gods.” She gestured brusquely to the idols arranged around the hearth.
All the men reverenced the household gods before withdrawing. Only Asterion hung back. He remained by the hearth, bare arms crossed over his breast. Pasibe knew she was about to get an earful from him.
Just then, her sister-in-law Pinaruti slithered back inside wearing an obvious smirk. “Wait outside.” Pasibe jabbed a finger at the door. Whenever Pinaruti visited, something always turned up missing.
Asterion did not countermand her order, for his elder sister was the high priestess and it was her house, but he did not wait for privacy before chastising her. “You’ve behaved shamelessly.” He started pacing across her earthen floor. “Half a dozen neighbors heard you pleading with Sama, begging him not to leave you. Then they heard you cursing him when he said he’d had enough of you.” Stopping directly before her, he thrust an accusing finger into her face, and with it punctuated his final words: “You cursed him.”
Pasibe’s chest tightened to recall that. Yes, she had, but... “I called him an ungrateful, selfish boy,” she corrected, “but I never, ever summoned the wrath of Velchanos down on him.” It was just like Asterion to assume the worst of her. She raised her voice. “I’ve never cursed anyone by any god, and shame on you for even suggesting it!”
Even Minos would have backed down. Not her brother. He brushed her disavowal aside like so much dust. “A woman of your age,” he scoffed, “shouldn’t cavort with little boys!”
“Sama was nineteen—hardly a child!” Pasibe rose from her footstool. Like Asterion, she was tall, and could look him in the eye. “I did not curse him as a high priestess would curse a man, only as a woman would, never calling on the gods. Hah! Rhaya and Velchanos ought to know. Pinaruti’s cursed you the same half a thousand times, and lo and behold, you’re still here.”
He ignored her; he never heard anything a woman said when she contradicted him. “You should remarry.”
When Pasibe laughed, it was a harsh, bitter laugh. “Whatever for?” she asked. “Marriage is for making children, and my womb has proven a fallow field.”
“Exactly.” Asterion nodded sharply. “If you were bearing children to these youths, if you were fruitful like Rhaya, well, that would be one thing, but you’re a childless stalk, and that’s something else. Don’t you see? This is a sign from the heavens, from Velchanos himself to cease your whoring ways.”
“You just say that because Pinaruti wants to become high priestess.” Pasibe’s nostrils flared. Only a woman descended of the ancient line of Europa could serve Rhaya, and Pinaruti was an outsider from neighboring Tylissos. “Well, that’ll never happen. Neither your wife nor her worthless daughter will ever serve in the sanctuary.”
“You’re imagining things.” Asterion always said that when confronted with his own behavior; the insult or failing was everyone else’s fault. “The goddess wants you to marry a respectable man and have daughters of your own—”
“Why, I had no idea you communed with the goddess!” Pasibe did not believe him for a second. Rhaya almost never spoke directly with men. “Come, you must tell me what else she has said to you.”
Asterion screwed up his face. “Dragas’s seed must have been no good,” he continued, ignoring her sarcastic challenge, “and these youths you cavort with are too young. You need a real man, a man of—”
“Get out,” she said, quietly but firmly, biting back a fierce urge to hurl something at him. How dare he insult her dead husband! “Go home and pray. Make offerings as I will do.”
“You know I am right.”
No, he was not, but she held her tongue. Asterion took her silence for agreement—perceiving, as always, only what he wished to—then left, shutting the door behind him.
Once he was gone, and the house empty, Pasibe sat for a long time in quiet reflection. With the door closed, she could not see the blasted cypress. Oh, she had loved that tree! Now she could no longer hang little offerings from its branches, and no longer sit in its shade on sweltering summer afternoons.
After a while, the rain started again; she heard the patter-spatter of a spring downpour on the flat roof of her house. Sama had insisted on going out in the
rain. Pasibe pictured his going, in the blue woolen mantle she had woven for him, the hood thrown back so that his black hair had glistened with raindrops like tiny crystals. Oh, Sama!
Pasibe felt cold again, and could not muster enough energy to collect her shawl, which she had left lying a few feet away. She had been paralyzed like that, too, she remembered, after her husband had died—frozen, speechless, indecisive, even with a household full of women to console her. Except then there had not been thunder and lightning, the unexpected flash of light and heat, the smell of burnt flesh, the deafening roar, and the ringing in the ears—all the signs of divine wrath. This was not like any death she had ever known. Was she blessed to have witnessed Velchanos’s manifestation and survived, or was she cursed?
The rain was intermittent, lasting past midday into the afternoon. Pasibe did not rise to check what her sister-in-law might have lifted from the house. She did not eat anything, either, although she had not eaten at all that morning. Sama’s portion still sat in a bowl by the fire. The sight of that dark burnished ware, and the memory of him holding it in his hands, brought tears to her eyes. Then, with no reason to stifle the deluge, she broke down and wept.
Sobs wracked her body. Sama had not been her husband, true, he had been a selfish, immature young man—she was not blind to his faults—but he had given her happiness, nights and drowsy afternoons of pleasure, and had restored to her the exuberance of youth. There was nothing wrong with that. She had not mistreated him. Quite the opposite, she had lavished him with clothes of the finest wool and linen, ornaments of rock crystal and expensive copper.
Gods, she realized, his belongings were still scattered about the house. She dreaded having to go through them. It had been hard enough sorting among her husband’s things. Sama’s family—those vultures—would want the costliest items for themselves, while Pasibe knew that they ought to be dedicated to Velchanos and the goddess. As high priestess, she could force the matter, but at the moment exerting her authority struck her as daunting as pushing a boulder uphill.
In all the chaos, she had forgotten the daily devotions she owed the sanctuary. Lord Potidas must be thanked for the miracle of the sunrise, and Mother Rhaya for spring’s bloom. Now Pasibe made haste. There was no time to paint her face and change. She snatched her shawl and the basket containing the daily offerings, and hurried outside.
The rain had stopped, but the ground underfoot was spongy and damp and smelled of burgeoning growth. She averted her gaze from the blasted cypress, even though the corpse under it had been taken away; the lingering reek of burnt wood and charred flesh left her queasy.
“High priestess, you must go back inside.”
She did not notice the sentry stationed on the gravel path until she was almost upon him. He was a neighbor, a middle-aged carpenter named Yamal whose wife suffered from rheumatism and was a constant visitor. Pasibe shook her head. “I must attend to the gods in the sanctuary.”
Yamal considered the items in her basket. “That isn’t necessary. The other priestesses have already nourished the gods.” Though he raised his arm to block her path, his demeanor remained deferential, and not unkind. “Please, return to your hearth. If there’s something you need, tell me and someone will bring it.”
Pasibe was not accustomed to being refused anything, and she instinctively bristled. Gods forbid, the priestesses under her command were nothing but country women, servants of the grove and the outlying shrines. They could not placate the immortal gods as she could. “Is this an order from Minos and the elders?”
Yamal’s weathered face betrayed little. “They thought perhaps you might want to mourn alone.” After a moment, he added, “I think his body’s being prepared in the sanctuary.”
Had she insisted on her prerogative, Pasibe knew she could have shoved past without much resistance, but something inside her rejected the possibility. Perhaps the gods would not welcome her. Perhaps she was polluted. And she did not necessarily want to see Sama’s corpse again. “His things are within.”
Yamal indicated his understanding. “I’m sure someone will come for them, though not today. Please—” He gestured toward her house. “It’ll rain again soon, I think. You shouldn’t catch cold.”
Pasibe did as she was bidden and withdrew indoors. She set her basket near the door and stood numb for a long time, staring into space. Her practical mind told her that she ought to eat something to maintain her strength and then gather Sama’s belongings for his family, but her body and her spirit were too sluggish to comply. Instead, she retired to her bed at the back of the house, where she removed her shoes, shawl and woolen outer gown, and crawled under the fleeces seeking the oblivion of sleep.
Yet, as she discovered, she dreaded sleeping without a warm body beside her. There had always been someone—her siblings, her husband, then the young men. That was why she had taken so many lovers, because she could not bear to be alone with herself. Such privacy was unnatural. It was desolation. Pasibe felt the sobs building again, and she wept into the linen pillow, crying herself to sleep.
She woke the next morning expecting to find Sama dozing beside her; he had liked to lie about until the mid-morning. But his usual space was cold, unused, and it took her a bewildered moment to remember what had happened. The lightning, the blasted tree, the charred body underneath it... She stared at the blanket; it took her a long while to shake off her catatonia and go to the hearth to sweep the ashes and feed the coals. She forced herself to choke down some leftover porridge, then she tended the household gods.
The gods were ancient, of baked and painted clay, handed down to her by her aunt, the last high priestess. She brought them to the hearth curb, anointed them with oil, and fed them scraps from her breakfast and some wine. “I do not understand why you took Sama,” she said to them. “Was it punishment for my taking so many lovers, as Asterion says, or was there some other reason, some other sin I committed? Enlighten your ignorant servant.”
But they remained silent and inscrutable, a sign that the answer she sought was not to be found there.
Pasibe had to go out that day, to fetch goat’s milk and clean water. Yamal accompanied her on her rounds, a gesture for which she was soon grateful.
In the forty-three centuries since its settlement, Aramo’s original farmstead on the hill had grown into a village of twelve hundred people, and it seemed to Pasibe that she encountered every single one of them on the path between her house and the well. People averted their faces, granting her a wide berth, and the women at the well-curb refused to acknowledge her.
Obviously they thought her, their own high priestess, polluted by the contamination of Sama’s death. She whose bloodline was so ancient, so pure. Pasibe humored them while pretending the ostracism did not affect her. Yet it did. The uncleanliness associated with death was a burden everyone suffered at the passing of kinsmen, but this was more than that. Velchanos’s lightning strike was a genuine conundrum, a mystery where the signs of divine blessing or approbation could not so easily be untangled.
“Has anyone spoken to you about yesterday’s event?” she asked Yamal on the way home.
Yamal took his time about answering. “They only wait to see what the sign means.” He carried the goat’s milk for her, while she took the water. “Nobody knows. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“Yet you talk to me.”
Yamal shrugged, and did not answer.
“Who gave you your duty?” she pressed.
“Minos asked for a volunteer to look after you and to make sure no one defiled the holy site.” He adjusted his hold on the milk bucket. “There’s also Kamash and Turro. Turro has the night shift. Kamash will be around this afternoon.”
Pasibe knew both men. Turro was a herdsman. Kamash kept Potidas’s sacred cattle. “Does your wife mind?”
“Tana asks about you.”
He was evading the question. “Does she speak well of me?” Anticipating his hesitation, she added, “You can tell me.”
“She’s confused, but she asked me to make certain you go nowhere alone, and that you have everything you need. Even those who are unclean must look after themselves.”
Did he think she was unclean? The event had touched her, yet whether that indirect contact with the divine was a blessing or a pollution she could not judge—and she would not ask him to guess, either. “Are you allowed to accept food or drink from my hands? I fear I have not been a good host.”
Yet he refused, as she anticipated he might. “That’s most kind of you, Lady Pasibe, but Tana brings me all I need.”
Concerns about hospitality prompted recollection of other neglected duties. Pasibe offered milk to the house snake lodging in a crevice of the dwelling’s foundation. Then she filled a bull-shaped rhyton with undiluted wine and, summoning her courage, took it to the place where Sama had died. She soaked the blasted earth with the gift of the vine. “This is for your ghost, my dear,” she said quietly.
Yamal could not tell her precisely when or where the funeral would be held. “Minos has taken charge of everything, I hear, even the washing of the corpse and the choice of burial place. Tana told me last night that the family doesn’t know any more than anyone else does.”
So it would be a secret burial, without the music and dancing and graveside feasting so typical of Kaphti funerals. Sama would have thought that shameful. Pasibe went back into the house and returned with one of his possessions, a ring of rock crystal that she had given him. After scratching a hole in the blackened, wine-soaked earth, she deposited the offering and covered it again. “Do not blame me for this horrible thing, dear Sama. I did not call the god’s wrath down on you. I did not want you to go.”
She stayed indoors that day, combing fleece to spin into woolen thread, and carrying on a conversation with the idols on their shelf. Just as Kamash arrived on duty at midday, a team of men came to prune the cypress of the scorched limbs that were about to fall; the rest of the tree was to be left intact. Pasibe set aside her carding comb and ventured forth to greet them and offer food and drink as sacred custom demanded. To no one’s surprise, they refused.