by Laura Gill
“We will return shortly.” Bansabira walked beside the palanquin where an agitated Itaya twisted his fingers. “In the meantime, you must think about your future. Serving in the high places is not like bull dancing. There are no admirers, no trinkets, and no glory.” He stepped around a pile of dung. “You might find it very dull and isolated.”
“I have no heart left for bull dancing,” Itaya answered dully. His floppy hat obscured his face; he had pulled it even farther down, as though in mourning, upon leaving the sanctuary.
That might be so, but Bansabira wanted to be sure. “You should speak to Piyasema. If he and I are agreed, we can speak to your family.” Gods knew, Itaya’s family cared more about the favors and material wealth his dancing could bring them than his health. His continued apathy—his laziness, as they phrased it—was for them a source of embarrassment and irritation, and they made no secret that they wanted the demon scourged from him. Perhaps he would fare better away from them. “What you want is something that takes serious contemplation and preparation. You must make yourself ready.”
“Then tell me what I must do.” Itaya’s desperation called out as though for medicine.
His mind did not change. During the autumn and winter months, he consulted with the priests who acted as intermediaries between Knossos and the Juktas sanctuary. Daily, he memorized and recited the prayers they had given him. He studied with a scribe to improve his signs and figures, and learned how to tally accounts. On blustery days, he swept the inner court. He tended the altars of Payawon and Poteidan, and cleaned the ritual equipment. Piyasema taught him the rudiments of herbal medicine. Itaya absorbed everything, and though he had little talent for identifying plants or scrawling on clay, he had a natural aptitude for doing figures in his head, a talent that could serve him well.
More telling still, he displayed no interest when Tarinu and his other friend Sassaros told him about the new initiates; he used to like teasing them, and garnering their respectful awe by walking on his hands. No more. He did not talk about bulls. He did not grow silent and troubled, and speak of his demon when faced with the sight of a labrys. In fact, he celebrated when a priest from Juktas instructed Piyasema to mark his flesh with the sacred sign. The very act strengthened him. “The demon cannot harm me anymore,” Itaya said. Then he opened his woolen tunic to show Bansabira the labrys inked above his heart. “And look, the double axe is also a butterfly.” His face became suffused with a radiant inner light. “I wear my own soul upon my chest.”
Bansabira decided then that he was ready. A word from the Minos saw Itaya released from his obligations as a bull dancer priest and given a position as an assistant scribe at the Juktas sanctuary. Once spring made traveling easier, Bansabira escorted him to Archanes, and thence up the mountain to be entered into the priestly register. Itaya walked the whole way. He had cut his dancer’s lovelocks weeks ago, and rather than leave his trinkets with his family, dedicated them to the gods by depositing them in the sacred fissure.
He did well in his new role. Bansabira received regular reports from contacts within the sanctuary, and even visited sometimes, when the Minos wanted a special offering delivered to the priests.
Europa did not summon Bansabira again. She must have known then that she lacked the authority to prevent him from giving his loyalty to the Minos, much less chastise him. Three families withdrew their daughters from her service. As the season turned toward summer, she appeared less often in public, issued fewer commands, and soon enough, consecrated high priestess or not, her influence at Knossos ceased altogether.
Just before the summer solstice, the Minos arranged for her to visit Juktas, although she did not go willingly. Her servants, weary of her mistreatment of them, conspired with the Minos to admit his men into her house. Bansabira was present the night the Minos’s men hustled her bound and gagged into a covered palanquin and conveyed her to the dwelling awaiting her on Juktas. The Minos even came out and approached her palanquin to bid her a courteous farewell; he suppressed a chuckle as Europa tried to curse him through her bonds. “May Rhaya be with you, my dear priestess!” he called.
Once at the peak sanctuary, she protested her captive state by complaining incessantly. Everyone she had contact with, however, was loyal to the Minos, and ignored her. She could have ruled her new domain, but her stubbornness was her undoing.
Instead, Europa remained shuttered in her pink and yellow house, a bitter relic living a hermetic existence with three servants and the sacred serpents she collected, while a high priest from Archanes tended the altars, oversaw the sacred accounts, and maintained regular communication with the Minos. Meanwhile, a new high priestess assumed control of the Rhaya Sanctuary. She wielded Mother Labrys on ritual occasions, and ever so graciously agreed to dismantle the uppermost story of Europa’s former house. The Minos now claimed the honor of owning the tallest dwelling on the hill.
That year’s harvest was the most abundant in a decade. Knossos breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Four
Daidalos
1922 B.C.
The packs sat beside the door. Daidalos’s staff leaned against the doorjamb. The architect was ready to leave, but his son was not. More specifically, Ikaros was nowhere to be found, and that was not like him. Daidalos mumbled an epithet while wondering where the boy could have gotten to. Ikaros knew very well that they had to leave Knossos early and reach Katsamba by afternoon in order to find a suitable vessel and negotiate their final passage to Naxos.
The servant Daidalos accosted in the corridor knew nothing—or rather, judging by her evasive mannerisms, she pretended ignorance. An attempt to elicit solid information yielded only more speechless shaking of the head. Losing patience, he shoved her aside, shouted Ikaros’s name and headed outdoors to broaden his search.
Outside, the landscape was among the strangest Daidalos had ever seen. A prosperous village surrounded the deserted hill atop which their lodging house stood. Whitewashed buildings and storehouses clustered along the embankment of a north-south flowing river, yet where the mansions of the wealthy should have risen above the humbler dwellings, everything on the hill had been knocked down with the exception of a small sanctuary, the deserted mansion in which he lodged and a second mansion on the southeast corner.
Ikaros had been curious about the rubble. Yesterday afternoon, Daidalos had taken him exploring; the ten-year-old knew the importance of not wandering off on his own in an unfamiliar place.
As he headed toward the center of the hill, Daidalos noticed a procession of women crossing the open ground fronting the sanctuary. Pasiphae, the high priestess of Knossos, was on her way to her morning devotions.
“Master Daidalos,” she said, approaching, “how are you this morning?” A seductive smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. Pasiphae’s cosmetics only enhanced her natural beauty. A low-cut ivory blouse contained full breasts. A jeweled belt encircled a tiny waist from which the tiers of her blue and yellow skirts cascaded to the ground. She appeared far younger than her true age, which Daidalos gauged must have been closer to thirty-five than twenty; the almost imperceptible network of crow’s feet that formed around her eyes when she squinted gave her away. Yet whatever her age, Pasiphae wielded her authority with the self-possessed ease that characterized many women of the islands. “We were told you were about to leave.”
Daidalos had neither the time nor the patience to indulge in any small banter. “Forgive my bluntness, but my son is missing and we are already late.”
“Yes,” she replied lightly. “I know about Ikaros.” Daidalos froze. How could she have known so quickly? He started to speak, when she indicated with a sudden gesture that he should close his mouth and listen. “Rest easy, Daidalos. Ikaros is with me.”
If so, then why had Pasiphae not brought him when she knew that her guests needed to be on their way? Daidalos’s sense of disquiet deepened. “Send for him,” he said.
Pasiphae neither moved to issue the order nor offere
d an answer, merely appraised him with cool sloe eyes. The tension became unbearable. What was she playing at? Daidalos clenched his hands behind his back to bring his nerves under control. Ikaros had not gotten lost or met with an accident among the rubble, thank the gods, but what was wrong? Why would Pasiphae not send for him or say anything? “Has there been an accident?” he asked, striving to remain calm while inside his heart beat ten leagues a second. Something terrible must have happened, and his hostess did not want to upset him—yes, that must be it.
“Ikaros is safe,” Pasiphae answered softly, “but you and he are not going anywhere.”
Had he heard her right? “What?”
“I told you before that I had need of your talents.” Again, that secretive, seductive smile played upon her lips. “It will be some time before you and your son leave.”
All at once it dawned on him what she meant, but it was so outrageous, so unheard-of, that Daidalos found himself struggling to comprehend how anyone could violate the laws of hospitality. “We are guests under your protection,” he said harshly. “You—”
Pasiphae raised an elegant white hand, signaling his silence. “You are mistaken, Master Daidalos.” Her voice was low, husky, compelling. “We have not violated your guest-right. Ikaros is still under my protection.”
Her sweet smile infuriated him. Whatever game she was playing—and he suspected what he would have to do to get his son back—he resented her aplomb. “Give me my son,” he growled.
Pasiphae did not budge. “When your work is finished,” she told him, “then you may both leave.”
Yes, his suspicions were correct. Daidalos took a threatening step closer; the high priestess’s guards moved to intercept him. “I told you before,” he barked, “that I was not interested.” He was angry enough to take on both men.
She spoke right over him. “Do you like this house, Master Daidalos? It once belonged to the Minos. Now it is yours. You may have laborers, servants, masons, carpenters, artists—anything and anyone you require—but you may not have Ikaros until you are finished.” Her voice was cold, hard as granite.
Daidalos shoved between the guards to thrust his face into hers. “You stupid bitch!” The men did not strike him, but shoved against him with their bodies and tall shields. “What you want will take years—generations, even. Ikaros and I will be on a ship to Naxos tomorrow.”
“Oh, but I have already prepared the site.” With a sweeping gesture, Pasiphae encompassed the hill with its debris. “I have purchased all this land, moved the people, knocked down the houses. The quarrymen are ready with the necessary limestone and gypsum, the carpenters can cut and split a hundred trees at my command, a hundred laborers can have this mess cleared within the week. It can be done within a year, perhaps two, and after that you and your son will leave with my thanks, and ample compensation.”
After all his explanations while dining at her hearth, the high priestess still had not grasped the enormity of what she was asking. She knew nothing about laying foundations, bracing structures against the kind of seismic stresses that plagued the islands, configuring staircases and doorways and courtyards; and he resented her dismissal of his expertise even as she sought it. “No, it can’t.” He withdrew a step, easing away from the guards so that they were no longer breathing in his face. “You haven’t done a tenth of the work necessary to even start building, much less finish the project.”
On the second day of his visit to Knossos, after Pasiphae’s first attempt to elicit his services, Daidalos’s experienced eye had told him that the hill needed to have its existing terracing reinforced, and the rubble compacted and leveled before the massive complex the high priestess envisioned could be constructed. That alone would take a year.
Had he been younger and more ambitious, Daidalos might have seized upon the project. Yet he was exhausted, worn out by twenty-seven years of going from one project to another, and traveling from one land to the next. He had married late, to a woman half his age who had died five years ago on the road to Enkomi. Ikaros was all the family he had left. With his hair turning gray, his joints stiff and aching from arthritis, his vigor quite sapped, what Daidalos wanted now was to return to his birthplace. Who was this Kaphti high priestess to say that he would remain and undertake the labor of her great temple? He was not beholden to her. “Find yourself another architect.”
“Go inside,” Pasiphae ordered. “Cool your head and think about your future. Ikaros will be quite safe with me.”
Daidalos could have throttled her, but he knew better than to assault a high priestess whose favor with her gods could bring their wrath upon his head—or worse, upon his son’s.
Once inside the house, he seized a footstool from the main room and hurled it against the wall. He bellowed at the servant woman who peered in to see what was amiss; she fled from him in terror. Upstairs, he grabbed his staff, swung it at the doorjamb, and kept hammering it until the plaster cracked and the pain in his joints forced him to stop. Pasiphae, damn her, had manipulated him, had violated her host obligations, and there was nothing practical he could do about it. He doubted he could even petition the ruler of Knossos. The Minos, he had been told, wielded only nominal authority.
“May the gods you serve curse you, Pasiphae,” he hissed. “May they turn their backs upon you and confound your plans.” Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and let his head sink into his hands. Although his anger was not yet satisfied, he dared not curse her further for fear of endangering his son.
A day ago, she had been the opposite: a charming and gracious hostess, if an impractical one. Pasiphae was a woman used to getting her way, he saw that immediately, but from what she had related to him about her ambitions for the temple, her head was stuffed with exaggerations of monuments in foreign lands. “I have heard that in Egypt a single temple may extend as far as the horizon, and that one king’s tomb may touch the heavens.” She had toyed with the rim of her goblet as she spoke. “They say this, too, about the temples in Babylon, that they climb to the sky. Such monuments entice the gods to dwell within.”
“Is that what you’re looking to build on your hill?” Daidalos had answered. “A temple that touches the sky?”
“Oh, no.” Then there was that smile so characteristic of her, giving the impression that she nursed some profound secret. “We have peak sanctuaries. The nearest of them stands on Mount Juktas, which you passed on your way north from Kommos. They are magnificent places, yes, but the first altars, the oldest sanctuaries, were here in the lowlands. This is where the people dwell, where the farms and groves and pastures are.” Pasiphae nodded to the servant standing behind his chair to replenish their cups. Daidalos had sampled enough of the dark Knossian wine to know that he would have a pounding headache the next morning. “Besides, there is not sufficient space on Juktas to accommodate what I have in mind.”
What the high priestess of Knossos had envisioned was a temple complex dedicated to all the gods of Kaphtor. Each deity would be honored with a sanctuary complete with anterooms for storage, purification, and different rituals. There must be granaries to accommodate the harvest, cubicles for record keeping and workshops, a pillar crypt such as the Kaphti used to propitiate their chthonic deities, a great central courtyard for spectacles, accommodations for pilgrims, separate entrances for various purposes, and kitchens to prepare food and drink for the gods. “I suppose my own builders are adequate for the task,” she conceded in a petulant tone that said otherwise, “but your coming is a godsend. Surely you see that, Master Daidalos.” Pasiphae radiated an inner light. “The gods have heard our prayers. They have answered by sending you to us.”
Daidalos did not know what she saw in him. He did not consider himself a superior architect, and certainly not better than the native Knossians. What Pasiphae wanted would take an Imhotep, a Rabi-Sillashu of Sippar, an Ibiranu of Ugarit—a demigod genius who had but to wave a hand to bring her grandiose ideas to fruition. Daidalos of Naxos was nothing but an aging builder
with callused hands, missing toes from an accident in Babylon, and a persistent pain in his lower back whenever he stood in one place for too long.
And now, after the insult of having his son taken from him, he would rather die than accommodate that treacherous bitch’s demands.
Daidalos brooded throughout the day. Unable to eat or sleep, he paced the floor. A thousand curses ran through his head, yet less than two dozen passed his lips. Sometimes he managed to sit down, until his restlessness got the better of him. Always, he was thinking. What could he do to thwart Pasiphae and force her to return his son? Dare he go to the marketplace and shout her perfidy to the people? He was a foreigner, a lowborn outsider. What should they care what their high priestess did to him? Why should they take his part? Moreover, he suspected that Pasiphae, that scheming, manipulative harpy, had anticipated him. If he were her, he would have had guards posted everywhere to prevent him from getting as far as the market. Not that it would matter if he did. She would have rehearsed her story. Daidalos could imagine the excuse: all I have done is to protect this poor, motherless boy. Look, his father is a madman. How could I leave him to mercy of such a one?
The thought made him clench his fists. Glancing around him, he saw that everything that could be hurled at the wall had been; the vessels had been smashed, furniture overturned, and cushions torn apart. He might as well have been a child throwing a tantrum.
At twilight, the servant woman ventured into his chamber with a supper tray, which he did not touch. She kept a wary eye on him while serving him, and then afterwards scuttled out with unseemly haste. Daidalos felt a pang of guilt for having bellowed at her earlier—a pang swiftly smothered when he recalled her earlier evasiveness. She had probably aided those who had abducted his son.