by Laura Gill
Someone gave the order to blow the tritons. Bansabira remained beside the plinth, below the horns of consecration, and waited for silence while his heartbeat hammered in his chest. He knew what he was going to do, and yet he was stumbling through the darkness where he deviated from the prescribed ritual path. Part of him expected Poteidan as the Great Bull to charge and impale him for his presumption, for who was he, a mere mortal, to think that he could comprehend the god’s will? He expected the high priestess to stand and order him to relinquish Mother Labrys, when simultaneously he sensed, somewhere beyond its bloodlust, its protective power. Nothing bearing the sign of the labrys could be harmed, which was why mothers inscribed it upon talismans for their children, and masons carved it upon doorways and pillars to keep away demons. Bansabira held the grandmother of all holy talismans, and while it remained within his grasp he was invincible and inviolate, an instrument for the god’s will.
When the crowd’s silence was sufficient, he held forth the labrys and said, “People of Knossos, hold your tongues!” Now, his words reverberated around the enclosure. Bansabira moved, measuring a regal walk toward bull and dancer. He felt powerful, ten feet tall, able to command the earth to shake and the very heavens to thunder, and it was not a sensation that he relished. When a man assumed so much power, it was so easy to stumble headlong into the trap of hubris! “Who are you to demand a death when the Great Bull himself does not? What do you know about sacrifice? This young dancer, this priest of Poteidan, he did not stumble through clumsiness. He does not weep from shame that he could not perform.” Raising the labrys high in one hand, Bansabira reached down with the other as if in benediction to touch Itaya’s head; the dancer’s hair was a tangle of sand and oiled ringlets. “You foolish, ungrateful people, Itaya weeps because he has not perished, because the god refused to accept the sacrifice he wished to make for your sakes, to assure this year’s harvest. Open your eyes!” Bansabira was shaking now in his outrage, and from the strength it took to wield so potent, so sacred a talisman. “The Great Bull has taken pity upon his most faithful and devoted servant, and you, who have no right to question his will, you shall do the same.”
Absolute silence. Bansabira could hear Noisy’s breathing, and the rising and falling of his own. Itaya’s sobs had ceased, but he continued to kneel before the bull. Bansabira slowly lowered the labrys. “Come,” he said quietly to the young man. “We have done enough. Let the Bull Dance continue now. I will take you back to the sanctuary.”
He restored the labrys to its plinth, bowed to the horns of consecration, then escorted a stumbling, humiliated Itaya from the enclosure. The crowd shifted aside to form an aisle, along which they reached forth hands to touch Bansabira’s vestments, Itaya’s hands and the hem of his soiled kilt. Their reverence was, in some respects, worse than their condemnation, because to Bansabira it seemed to convey a profound ignorance and hypocrisy.
The shadowy coolness of the sanctuary on the hill offered a welcome respite. Since Pasibe’s time, the sanctuary had been rebuilt four times, and was now triple the size. Its whitewashed façade boasted columns of scarlet and black, and yellow ornamental bands. An open area before the main entrance was used for sacrifices and ritual dances.
As Bansabira helped Itaya into the shade of the main portico, the attendant on duty hastened down from the flat rooftop, where he had been watching the Bull Dance from afar, and on Bansabira’s command he ran to the well to fetch water. Bansabira hustled Itaya along a narrow corridor, through an inner courtyard where sacred herbs were grown and the house snake dwelt, and into the adyton, a sunken chamber used for ritual bathing. There, he removed his cowhide kilt and fringed fleece, helped Itaya with his clothing, and had him sit on a bench for the oil and strigil. “Now tell me,” he said, taking a linen towel from the adjoining storeroom closet, “why you seek death even though you have not been summoned to the sacrifice.”
Itaya had not spoken in all this time, and he hesitated. “I was...,” he began hoarsely. Swallowing, sniffling, he tried again, “I was called. I heard the god calling me.”
“No, he did not.” Bansabira found a jar of sand, and brought that from the storeroom along with the towel. “Otherwise, the bull would have gored you, and we would not be discussing it now.”
Itaya turned his face to the far wall. “I was seized by a strange melancholy, a darkness in my soul.” He hung his head. “I cannot explain it.”
Bansabira set the items on the bench, then started oiling the young man’s shoulders. “Have you quarreled with a lover?” Some of the professional dancers had avowed lovers, others had casual encounters with admirers and acquaintances. Itaya seemed to fall into the latter category.
The young man shook his head, and mumbled, “I can bathe myself. You are missing the dance.”
“I don’t think you should be left alone after what just happened.” Bansabira reached into the jar for fine sand to scour Itaya’s skin with. “This is not seduction, if that’s what concerns you.” The dancer’s skin was clammy, and taut with anxiety. “I have a wife.”
Itaya reached up to pull his tangled hair out of the way. “So does everybody else.”
“Is that so? Here, raise your arm.” Bull dancers depilated their bodies to maintain their youthful appearance. Bansabira scrubbed under a smooth armpit. “I prefer women. No, I am doing this because you are clearly suffering from some affliction of the soul and require purification.” He reached for the towel to wipe his hands with, then the strigil. “I need not tell you that you won’t dance again until you are well.”
The attendant entered with two brimming buckets of water, which Bansabira directed him to leave beside the adyton. Though his mouth was closed, questions filled the man’s eyes, and his gaze kept flicking surreptitiously to Itaya; he had probably witnessed the scene with the bull and labrys from the rooftop. Bansabira chose not to enlighten him further. “Leave us, Keppu.”
After scraping, rinsing down and dressing his charge in clean linen, Bansabira led him into a chamber dedicated to the healing god Payawon, where the tormented of soul came to have their dreams interpreted, and directed Itaya to lie down on the cot. “Close your eyes,” he said. “I won’t leave you alone. Someone will shadow you until you are well again.” Bansabira wracked his brain to find an appropriate guardian, someone reliable and compassionate who could also enter the holiest areas of the sanctuary.
The cot’s leather and plaited reed framework creaked as Itaya lay down. “I honestly thought the god wanted me to die.”
Bansabira dragged over a footstool. The air was warm and still in the chamber, and musty with the fragrance of dried medicinal herbs. Itaya would probably need something to help him sleep. Bansabira had some herb knowledge, but it had been a while since he had prepared a sleeping draught. “No, that was the demon,” he said. “Why did you not confide in me when I asked you?”
“I told you why.” Itaya closed his eyes. “At first, I thought: thank the gods someone understands, Bansabira is going to send me on my way, but then...” He articulated himself in a monotonous mumble. “You heard the crowd chanting. They wanted my death. Mother Labrys wanted my death—she always drinks blood. What prevented you?”
“I have eyes and ears.” Bansabira took his hand. “You neither admitted nor denied what Tarinu said, so I observed you, and saw you attempting to conceal your intentions behind that clumsy sprint and dive. You would have died, the demon would have succeeded in destroying you, had Noisy not turned aside. I acted because the god in his grace allowed me to understand what was happening, and because he granted me the divine inspiration and the authority to intervene.”
Itaya’s plucked eyebrows crinkled in dismay. “When I was on the ground kneeling, I saw the shadow of the labrys and the shadow of the bull’s horns coming together. I thought for certain...” As he shook his head, his hair trailed wet patches on the cushion. “I cannot believe I am still here.”
Any other man would have thanked the god and the priest for
rescuing him; Itaya’s dispiritedness was yet another sign of his illness. “You are here,” Bansabira replied, “because it is not your time to die.”
Rising, Bansabira rooted among the herbs stored in jars on the shelves. He recognized sage and fennel, celery, juniper and saffron. There were powdered mushrooms, poppies, and other noxious substances which he dared not touch because they offered perilous conduits to the otherworld. Bansabira found himself at a loss. While he knew how to alleviate bovine ailments, treating humans beyond applying pressure to bleeding and setting broken bones was something he left to others. Chamomile aided sleep, he knew that, but he could not judge the precise measure. Melisa, he recalled, always gave the children warm goat’s milk with honey when they suffered bad dreams. That might do the trick. Calling down the corridor for Keppu, Bansabira ordered him to fetch goat’s milk and honey.
The temple servant was gone for some time before he returned with a jug of goat’s milk. Bansabira warmed it over a brazier, and stirred in a spoonful of honey before administering a cupful to his patient. “At the very least,” he said, “it won’t harm you.”
“It’s been a long time since anyone gave me milk with honey.” Itaya contemplated the contents of his cup. “Are you going to sit with me till I fall asleep, too?”
His weak sarcasm yielded a sad smile, and as he drank Bansabira chanted over him the same prayer Melisa used when their children were sick. “Pawayon, gentle healer, come sit by the bed. Banish the fever demons, O Lord. Drive the night mare away. Come sit by the bed where Itaya lies.” Before he realized what he was doing, Bansabira was singing with the same hushaby cadence his wife used. “Come sit with him, come hold his hand.”
Itaya stretched out again and closed his eyes. “I didn’t expect you to sing a lullaby,” he mumbled. After a time, his breathing became regular, and he started to snore.
Bansabira stayed beside him, enjoying the quiet of the sanctuary after the morning’s chaos. He watched the play of sunlight and shadows in the corridor, and counted the passage of time. Sometimes he heard cheers echo up from the riverbank. The Bull Dance would soon end. Bansabira smothered a yawn behind his hand, observing that it was now time for the afternoon sleep. Perhaps he could doze sitting upright.
He must have drowsed a little, because his eyes were suddenly bleary, and his tongue was furred with a sour taste. Voices grew closer. There was movement nearby. The sanctuary was coming alive again as priests, priestesses, and temple servants returned from the Bull Dance.
A familiar, heavily shuffling tread in the corridor announced the arrival of Piyasema, the healer-priest of Payawon. Middle-aged, his sweat-soaked vestments straining against his portly frame, he was wheezing from exertion, and mopping a perspiring face with a soiled rag. “Ah,” he gasped, nodding toward the cot. “You brought him here. Gods above, what did you do out there? I’ve never seen anything so...” A labored breath. “People everywhere are talking.”
Bansabira rose from the footstool. “Bull Dancer Priest Itaya has been afflicted with a demon that led him into trying to sacrifice himself during the Bull Dance.” He could not care less what the people were saying; whatever had happened had been between him, Itaya, and Poteidan. “Someone trustworthy must monitor him while he rests, because the demon may return.” Itaya was oblivious, snoring softly. “Can you spare Arudara?”
“Well...” Piyasema shambled into the chamber, and heaved himself down onto the stool, which barely took his weight. “Arudara has a strong arm for beating out demons, although...” He pushed the tasseled fleece from his shoulders; the tunic underneath was soaked around the collar and under the arms. “A demon powerful enough to pervert a bull dancer into committing suicide by ritual might resist the scourging.” Piyasema wiped the back of his hand across his brow; his sweat smelled rank, like old garlic. “Has the god instructed you in his care? Whatever he said, you must tell me.”
“Do not scourge him,” Bansabira replied. “I have questioned Itaya, and determined that his particular demon thrives on pain. You might kill him while strengthening the demon. Itaya should breathe in frankincense smoke and drink water from the Juktas spring—I was thinking how successful you’ve been with those cures—and have his dreams interpreted.” It occurred to him that he should not be telling Piyasema how to treat a patient, but then, he had never seen scourging work against demonic possession, either. “I will bear the expense for the incense and dream interpretation.”
“Oh, I think the temple can afford that.” By now, Piyasema had caught his breath. “Arudara has the remainder of the afternoon to himself, but I will send for him tonight.” He tried to keep his voice soft so as not to disturb Itaya, but the healer-priest was not by nature a quiet man. “Hmm, has this demon expressed an affinity for sharp objects or any other means of self-destruction?” Piyasema gazed from his patient to Bansabira, and shook his head, his attention clearly divided. “Remarkable. I never thought anyone could speak directly with the gods without the aid of mushrooms or poppies.”
Bansabira neither confirmed nor denied speaking with the gods—everything was a blur, now that he tried to remember, and he could not lie convincingly—but he summarized his suspicions and explained why he had not acted sooner. “I share your thoughts about keeping any sharp instruments and poisons out of reach. I have never seen a demon afflict a bull dancer priest so severely. This one could be capable of anything.”
Piyasema nodded. “Hmm, you’re right.” He sighed. “Thanks be to him who showed mercy. Itaya has been his faithful servant. Let me rest, change out of these vestments, have a bath. Later, when he’s awake, I can examine him. Send for his companions. They can take turns watching him until Arudara’s available.” Piyasema assessed Itaya’s sleeping form. “One should suffice, unless you think he may turn violent.”
Bansabira agreed that a single attendant would do, and that restraints should be employed. Piyasema saw to the bonds, lengths of wool wound around the wrists and ankles, and secured to the cot. Itaya stirred while he was working, and to no one’s surprise, took alarm when he realized what the healer-priest was doing. Bansabira swiftly reassured him, “Don’t panic. This is to prevent the demon from harming you, that’s all. Do you understand?” It took the sluggish Itaya a moment to signal his comprehension. “I’m going to send for Tarinu to sit with you. You will not be left alone.”
Piyasema exited as soon as the restraints were secure, but Bansabira stayed behind until Tarinu, still wearing his bull dancer’s kilt and adornments, answered his summons. Bansabira offered an abbreviated explanation of Itaya’s condition, then secured Tarinu’s oath to stay faithfully beside his companion and not release him, no matter how the demon threatened or cajoled. “Also, you will not discuss this with anyone else, not even his family. Healer-Priest Piyasema will tell them whatever they must know. Is that understood?” Tarinu nodded, swearing a second solemn oath. Itaya relaxed a little when his friend claimed the footstool, and closed his eyes. Bansabira did not leave until he was safely asleep.
Keppu found him in the corridor of the older sanctuary. “Priest Bansabira, the Minos awaits you outside.”
What did the Minos want with him? Probably to take him to task over his presumption in handling Mother Labrys—no, that was something the high priestess would do, and then she would send for him, not come in person. It could not be to inquire after Itaya, either; that was not something a man of the Minos’s stature did personally.
Aware of his disheveled appearance, Bansabira refastened the cowhide kilt around his waist, replaced the fleece over his shoulder and adjusted the tassels, combed his fingers through his hair, and then, when he was as presentable as possible on such short notice, he ventured out to meet the ruler of Knossos.
The Minos still appeared impeccable in his scarlet kilt and gold and silver ornaments; he did not even seem to have broken a sweat. “Priest Bansabira,” he said, inclining his head, “I fear it was too warm in the sanctuary to wait. Let me escort you home.”
S
ince when did the Minos offer to escort anyone? That was beneath his station. “It is not necessary.” Bansabira offered up a private prayer that the ruler of Knossos would not fawn over him the way the healer-priest had; it was difficult enough acknowledging the wide-eyed curiosity of the Minos’s armed escort. “But I will not refuse.”
Leaving the sanctuary, they passed the color-washed dwellings of the great families, heading on a southeast trajectory toward Bansabira’s house. Merchants and elite craftsmen also occupied the hill, and on any given day one could see them transacting business with their neighbors, bringing wine, oil, and other goods to the houses, even to the sanctuary, but now the cobbled lanes were crowded with people returning from the Bull Dance. After the midday sleep, toward the late afternoon, everyone would gather in the big court for feasting and dancing. Bansabira did his utmost to avoid his neighbors’ inquisitive stares, their pointing and muttering, and was grateful for the shield of the Minos’s armed escort.
“It has been a momentous day,” the Minos commented. “I confess, I had not given you much thought before, but I see now that that was my mistake. Simply amazing. You have a natural authority about you, which is a quality not many priests possess. You have a genuine vocation and a forthrightness I like. We could be great friends, you and I.”
So it was his support that the Minos wanted. “I am not a political man,” Bansabira answered, striving to keep his voice low against the many potential eavesdroppers. “I live a quiet life, Minos. My family’s welfare and my priestly obligations are my sole concerns.” Hanging about the Minos’s household, wasting precious time currying favor with him when he had the initiates to look after, held no personal appeal.
“And I admire you for that, Priest Bansabira.” The Minos’s voice echoed between the houses; apparently he did not care who overheard their conversation. “But as a religious man, surely you can see that the peak sanctuary is the solution to our problems. You saw today that the Great Bull does not want any more human blood spilled. Enough is enough—oh, by the way, how is the young bull dancer doing? That was a very brave, noble thing Itaya tried to do, and it was a shame that he was so humiliated, but...”