Knossos

by Laura Gill

  “He is resting.” That was all the Minos needed to know at present. “You are asking me to choose sides.” Bansabira was at a disadvantage, compelled as he was to have this conversation in the open, and he resented it. If the Minos respected him as much as he claimed, then he would at least have offered him the dignity of a private meeting.

  “Are you afraid to side with me against Europa?” The Minos chuckled. “She’s intimidated many, but today you showed that you have great inner strength, certainly more than a match for her.” When Bansabira did not answer, he added, “Here, let me make a proposal. Visit the sanctuary. Judge for yourself whether the gods might be induced to dwell there and receive our offerings. Then you can decide.” Turning a corner, they approached Bansabira’s house with its pale pink wash and its dozens of hanging flower pots frothing with cornflowers and crocuses and wild roses. “And here we are. Come visit me sometime, Bansabira, and bring your wife. You were excellent company today.”

  Melisa met him inside with cool barley water flavored with mint, and an invitation to bathe. She did not question him about the spectacle of the labrys, or ask anything at all except to comment on his appearance. “You look tired, Husband, and pale. The god has worn you out.” She eased the fringed fleece from his shoulder. “You need to eat something, and then you need to sleep. I will deal with any curiosity seekers.”

  Bansabira stepped through the main room into the corridor leading to the bathroom at the back of the house. The children had not yet returned, and would probably stay out until evening with their friends. “Has anyone come around bothering you?”

  Melisa handed his clothes and ornaments to the servant Dusenni, who indicated with quiet gestures that the bath was ready. “A few neighbors, that’s all. Duripi’s kinsmen came to thank you for your kindness to him. They said they would return tomorrow with gifts.”

  The bathroom was small and plain but blessedly cool after the heat of the afternoon. Bansabira sat naked on the wooden bench. “Say nothing to them about the wager.” He ran his fingers through his sweaty hair. “I cannot believe that Kubaba...”

  Melisa reached over for the olive oil and sand. “What did the Minos want with you?”

  “He wants me to side with him against High Priestess Europa.” Bansabira stretched out his legs as she smeared the oily sand into his skin. “I have no interest in their quarrel.”

  “He’s obviously interested in you, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise after today,” she said matter-of-factly. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him nothing.” He preferred not to think about politics or demons or anything else for the rest of the day, and would have remained indoors, except that Melisa would probably want to attend the feast; she seized upon any excuse to mingle and dance, which she did so well. Bansabira resolved to escort her. “He wants me to visit his house, and the peak sanctuary.” There was a bothersome knot at the back of his neck he wanted her to explore. “Hmm,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “I will think about those things tomorrow.”

  *~*~*~*

  By day, Bansabira sought refuge in the sanctuary, where he attended to the accounts pertaining to the sacred cattle. Poteidan’s herd at Knossos numbered two hundred twenty-two animals, up from last year’s two hundred fifteen, and required abundant grazing, servants to watch them for signs of disease and guard them against poachers, and those servants themselves needed grain, oil, wine, and cloth. Tedious work, Kubaba relegated his share of it to a pair of temple scribes. Bansabira made a point of checking and double-checking anything he set his seal upon.

  When he was not busy with the god’s accounts, he visited Itaya in the healing god’s precinct. Itaya’s demon was quiescent now, and the young man did not need restraints, but Piyasema was reluctant to release him. “I believe,” the healer-priest said, “that the demon cannot penetrate the holy temenos, and is simply lying in wait for its victim to venture forth again. We must be absolutely certain before we make any decision.”

  Itaya took a different view. “What more can Piyasema do for me besides scourging me, and if the demon isn’t even inside me then what use is there in that?” Lately, that had become his prevailing attitude—what is the point, what is the use?—which suggested to Bansabira that the demon, although subdued, still very much inhabited his spirit.

  Whenever he walked abroad, conducting business or simply going between his house and the sanctuary, Bansabira ignored all queries about his actions during the Bull Dance. Given enough time, and the fact that the high summer was turning toward harvest, Poteidan’s rituals yielding to the inexorable primacy of the Great Goddess, he was confident that the people’s curiosity would wane as they sought out newer, more exciting fodder for gossip.

  And then, two days before the harvest, the temple servant Keppu brought word that the high priestess wanted to see him immediately. “She says to attend her in the Rhaya Sanctuary.”

  Bansabira slowly set down his stylus. “Attend” carried the connotation of command, where he as a priest of Poteidan technically did not operate under Europa’s authority. He could refuse her if he wished, and as Kubaba often did, but unlike his colleague he recognized that the continuing harmony of the temple resided with observing common courtesies.

  The Rhaya Sanctuary was the oldest part of the sanctuary complex. The age-darkened cypress wood xoanon dominating the altar was the very same xoanon before which Pasibe had made her offerings. There were, however, more ritual observances now than there had been in her time. Bansabira was obliged to sit before the doorway, wash his hands and feet with scented water, and humbly inquire through the curtain whether a man might enter the goddess’s domain.

  A young priestess admitted him with a gestured admonition to leave his shoes outside and to not make a sound. Bansabira slunk inside, bowed to the xoanon, and assumed a place against the wall with the high priestess’s attendants.

  Europa derived obvious satisfaction in making him wait; she lingered over the arrangement of the kernos, and wafting cloyingly sweet frankincense smoke about the xoanon, and while she did this she chanted an elaborate litany of the many bloodless offerings she had just made. Bansabira let his attention drift; he doubted the goddess gave much heed to her high priestess once she consumed the essence of the material offerings. In his opinion, Europa was yet one more servant of the god who assigned greater significance to the show of devotion than to the substance. No wonder the goddess stinted the people of Knossos at the harvest, when she was served with such hollow reverence.

  “You should have sacrificed that young man.” Europa was speaking, her tone disdainful, as she set down the pyxis containing the burning grains of frankincense. “When Mother Labrys meets a ready victim, she should drink deeply to nourish the gods.”

  “I cannot speak for Rhaya,” Bansabira replied carefully, “but Poteidan did not desire the sacrifice. He made that clear to us when he diverted the bull from Itaya’s misguided run.”

  Europa disregarded his explanation with a low harrumph. “I understand that Nashua has spoken to you.” Like his kinsmen and closest friends, she often referred to the Minos by his given name, but she was the only one to use it with contempt. “He asked you to side with him against me, did he?”

  “He mentioned the peak sanctuary.” Bansabira saw no point in lying, for her network of spies would already have assured that she was supplied with the essential information, yet he wondered why she had waited so long to confront him about the meeting.

  “What did he promise you?” Europa did not acknowledge with her gaze; she offered a study in avoidance, as she arranged and rearranged the xoanon’s embroidered garments, toyed with the alabaster kernos, adjusted the seal stone on her wrist. Did she fear him? Bansabira could not fathom what she saw in him that would inspire such sentiments. He had never threatened her position or spoken against her. Perhaps, he thought, his colleagues had not exaggerated when they described her as the type who perceived enemies everywhere.

  “Nothing,” he rep
lied.

  “Then do not accept his gifts,” she said. “Do not associate with him or his kinsmen. Turn away his messengers. That is an order.”

  Bansabira clenched his jaw. Her lofty tone irked him. Once again, she trod beyond her authority, for she did not have the right to command his personal loyalties. Moreover, her conspicuous show of devotion prompted thoughts that perhaps the gods were angry with the people because their high priestess did not serve them as she ought. Odd, how he had never considered that before.

  He promised her nothing, merely bowed to the goddess and excused himself. Maybe he should investigate further, seeing as how both sides had now expressed an interest in him.

  He waited until after the harvest, when the weather cooled, to travel to Juktas. Though he was entitled to use a palanquin, he preferred to walk, traversing the dusty north-south road connecting Knossos with the village of Archanes, nestled in a fertile valley below the mountain’s eastern flank. Finding lodgings in a pilgrim hostel, he withheld his name from the local priests, who nevertheless recognized him, and offered him better sleeping arrangements than those he had taken. It did not take him long to realize that the Minos had sent a messenger running ahead of him to inform the hostel—and probably the sanctuary—of his coming. “I am here as a humble pilgrim,” he said, “and the weather’s fair enough for sleeping on the portico. Just don’t let me sleep too long.”

  While Juktas was not as high a peak as Mount Ida rearing its snow-crowned heights to the west or cloud-shrouded Mount Dikte rising to the east, the pilgrim trail proved quite a hike for one not accustomed to climbing. Bansabira’s calves were burning, and he had a stitch in his side by the time he reached the sanctuary in midmorning. On his last visit, when he was a younger, fitter man, there had been a temenos wall encircling an ancient altar, and a hut where the sanctuary guardian had dwelled. Much had changed since then. A massive precinct wall covered a circumference of more than two thousand feet, enclosing much of the summit; the cyclopean blocks, interspersed with smaller stones, stood nine feet thick in places, and rose twelve feet high. From what Bansabira had seen thus far, the Minos had not exaggerated his claims that he had spared no expense. Even the outbuildings were splendid, colored with subtle washes of pink and yellow, and made lush with potted flowers. No doubt the Minos intended that house for the high priestess, for the guardian’s thatched mudbrick hut was gone, as, apparently, was the elderly guardian himself.

  Bansabira, however, had not come to peruse the living arrangements. At the entrance to the temenos, he performed the ritual ablutions, washing his hands and feet. Then he ascended a cobbled ramp to the first of two stepped terraces, where a long, rectangular building contained the tripartite shrine. This was an ancient type of altar favored in the mountains, but starting to gain popularity in the lowlands. A tapering scarlet pillar fashioned from an inverted cypress trunk occupied a high central plinth; it was flanked by two pairs of lower pillars painted bright yellow and blue, the colors representing the triple realms of the earth, heavens, and the underworld. The whole structure was roofed and surmounted by multiple horns of consecration doubling as cornices.

  Bansabira bowed, fist clenched over his breast. Because the shrine was not dedicated to any one deity, it honored them all. Turning, he faced the sole surviving aspect of the old sanctuary: the flat altar standing sentinel over a vertical cleft in the earth. In this sacred cave, pilgrims dedicated offerings to Poteidan, Velchanos, and Potnia, the Mother of the Mountains. Bansabira fondly recalled how in his youth his father had brought him to the summit and, after showing him how to select a suitable offering, instructed him in how to placate Poteidan in the high places where he dwelt. One did not simply toss an object into the fissure, but took care with the prayer and placement...

  An attending priest, his tasseled robes buffeted by the brisk wind upon the summit, approached him. “Bull Priest Bansabira, do you wish to commune with the gods?”

  Again, word of his visit had preceded him. Bansabira nodded. “Will you leave us?”

  Circling the cleft and altar, he ventured toward the edge, where the temenos ended, and a steep plunge awaited the unwary. The westward view extended toward Mount Ida. When he craned his neck northward, Bansabira could make out Knossos on its mound, the sun glinting along the thread of the Kairatos River, then Katsamba, the blue ocean and the rocky isle of Dia far in the distance. Oxygen rushed into his lungs, cool and clear, and in a reflective moment he sensed the nearness of the immortal gods. Primeval forces inhabited Juktas. Europa was a fool to reject stewardship of the sanctuary. A high priestess conducting rites before that tripartite shrine, upon that ancient altar, could be assured an audience with the deities. And she could extend her influence over those who flocked to Juktas yet did not owe their allegiance to Knossos. Bansabira would have been tempted, had the Minos expressed interest in installing a high priest rather than an irrational high priestess who could not see past petty rivalries to recognize the possibilities in the situation she was being offered.

  The gods, Bansabira decided, would not smile upon Knossos again until something was done about Europa.

  Returning to the cleft, he retrieved from his pocket his gift for the gods. He contemplated the cylinder seal; its deep blue coloring would delight the powers of the mountain. “Poteidan, Lord of Heaven,” he said. “Potnia, Mother of the Mountain. Velchanos, holy consort. I dedicate this seal stone to you. Watch over the people of Knossos. Smile upon them. I am your faithful servant.” Bansabira touched his lips to the lapis lazuli, then knelt, bowed to the fissure, and let the cylinder seal roll from his fingers into the depths.

  He returned home with renewed purpose. The next evening, he answered an invitation from the Minos by bringing Melisa. The Minos’s elegant three-storied mansion stood at the northwestern corner of the hill, which had been reinforced with terracing to support the construction; one could see an identical terrace of rough-hewn blocks to the southeast, where the high priestess’s mansion stood, and, increasingly, everywhere else that Knossos’s wealthy priests, well-to-do merchants, and scribes decided to build their great houses.

  The Minos’s wife greeted Bansabira and Melisa inside the outer portico, and ushered them in past the tidy main room to an inner court made pleasant by hanging flower pots and potted fruit trees. Servants lit torches as dusk descended, and served Egyptian wine with the first course of oysters, grilled fish, and watercress salad. Bansabira could not remember the last time he had attended a supper party; normally he preferred not to linger over his meal, which was, he admitted, much better for the digestion, but finished quickly and returned to his work. Tonight offered a pleasant change, especially when Melisa looked so lovely in her rose-colored gown and pale yellow kilt with tasseled chevrons.

  The Minos—who insisted that Bansabira call him Nashua—did not press him about his changed views or loyalties, but kept the conversation casual and lively; the guest gifts he presented were appropriate to Bansabira’s status, and nothing more. The sole concession he made to Bansabira’s pilgrimage was a single comment: “I am glad you found the Juktas sanctuary to your liking.”

  “Others would also approve,” Bansabira answered, “if they but laid eyes upon your efforts.”

  The Minos’s mouth curved into a smile. “We will discuss that further.” He raised his painted cup. “Tonight, in honor of the season, let us celebrate the gift of the grape.”

  Bansabira went the following day to put a proposal to Piyasema. The healer-priest listened, agreed that it was a sound idea, and together they went to find Itaya, seated outside in the shady courtyard. “I have just visited the Juktas peak sanctuary,” Bansabira said. “There is an ancient altar there, a sacred fissure, and a tripartite shrine dedicated to all the gods.” He sat down beside the young man. Piyasema remained standing. “I found a comforting serenity there. You would, too, I think. Would you consider accompanying me on another visit?”

  Itaya dithered. Piyasema had confided in Bansabira that the young
man had grown too comfortable in his seclusion. “And what would we do there?” he asked listlessly.

  “For one thing, you might see whether you might be suited to the life of a sanctuary priest, as you obviously have no more interest in bull leaping.” That was a reach, because Bansabira did not know anything for certain, and did not think Itaya knew, either. What he did know, however, was that many bull dancer priests found the transition from bull leaping to the more mundane aspects of priesthood difficult; some overreacted, mourning the loss of their favored status, the prospect of growing old and being forgotten, and committed suicide. Itaya was twenty-one, not yet debilitated by injury, only by the demon inside him. Meeting the gods in their dwelling place might exorcise that spirit.

  Itaya made the short journey to Juktas in a palanquin, not because he could not walk, but because the demon inside him encouraged his listlessness. Only when he arrived at the summit, when he glimpsed sacred Ida and Dikte to the west and east of him, and breathed in the boundless clear air of the heavens, did he come alive. He stepped down from the palanquin onto the very bones of the earth, and, laughing, made straight for the edge. Alarmed, Bansabira seized his arm, restraining him. “I did not bring you here for that.”

  “I know.” Itaya moved back from the edge, and returned to the altar and the fissure where their attendants waited. “I always thought the bull was where Lord Poteidan’s godhead dwelt, but now I see that he is everywhere—in every bull, in the heavens, and under the earth.” He was rambling on like a drunken man, or an ecstatic one. “He is infinite.”

  Naturally, he wanted to stay, wanted to become a priest of the sanctuary, and serve the god in the high places, but though the priests asserted that the mountain air could cure his ailments, Bansabira suspected that his newfound elation was false, fleeting—indeed, a drunkenness of the spirit which possessed those who ventured on high—not a true calling. Entering the priesthood took time and contemplation, and absolute certainty, and he explained as much to a dispirited Itaya on the way back to Knossos.