by Laura Gill
*~*~*~*
“I tell you again, that woman is not well.” The Minos stroked the stubble prickling his chin. “I wonder if she knows her son is dead.”
Daidalos did not know what reaction the man expected from him. Was he supposed to pity the pale, withdrawn woman on Yishharu’s left? Pasiphae’s eldest son was dead? So was his. He had not lost his mind over it.
He did not enjoy the Bull Dance; it called forth too many memories of Ikaros. Furthermore, he did not care for the crowd’s acclamation. What was he but a mere builder? Commoners elevated to bask among the vultures were without exception devoured by them in the end; he felt less an honored guest on the platform than an object of prey.
At least being able to converse with the Minos’s family alleviated some of the boredom. “To tell you the truth, when you’ve seen one Bull Dance, you’ve just about seen them all. This...” The Minos waggled a palsied forefinger toward the sand where five initiates lined up to salute him and the high priest. “This is spectacle for the young to marvel at and dream about.”
Recalling how taken Ikaros had been with the Bull Dance, Daidalos nodded.
The Minos, who insisted that Daidalos address him by his name, was already snoring; he tended to doze at inopportune moments, as the very elderly often did. His attendants left him alone, knowing that he would wake again in a few moments and carry on as though nothing happened. Earlier, when he was more lucid, he had introduced Daidalos to his son and heir, Dadarusa, who was Daidalos’s own age, and to his grandson, who, Daidalos was told, would dance with the bull next year.
The boy was excitable, bouncing between the platform and the place nearby where his mother, aunts, and siblings were seated, until the Minos grumbled a reprimand, “Make up your mind, child.” Stung, and shooed by his father, the boy scampered away. “He’s eaten too many sweets this morning.” The old man shrugged. “A year with the bulls should do him some good.”
The initiates followed the lead of the bull dancer priests in engaging the bull. “I’m going to send Dadarusa to see what you’ve accomplished,” the Minos continued. “Keep meaning to visit myself, but his eyes are sharper than mine and I tire easily.”
Daidalos shot a glance toward Yishharu, but the high priest appeared intent on the initiates; that did not mean he did not have one ear on the conversation. “We get very few visitors. Only the workshops and storehouses are active, and there’s limestone dust everywhere.”
Dadarusa responded with a penetrating look. “I think I can tolerate a little dust and mess.”
“It’s up to the high priest who visits the sanctuary of Poteidan.” Daidalos hated conceding that point, but there it was. “Even my access is restricted.” Once the artisans had finished decorating the lower chambers, a temple guard was posted on the staircase. Yishharu regularly brought other priests to inspect the construction; they emerged brimming with compliments for the architect.
Dadarusa’s generous mouth widened with a grin exuding a subtle menace. “Naturally. But there are storehouses and workshops that are not restricted and, I understand, you have begun construction on a north hall.”
Daidalos restrained an urge to tell him to address his concerns directly to Yishharu; he was no intermediary. “Ask for me through my scribe, Kurra.”
The Minos made a face as though someone had broken wind next to him. “We know Kurra quite well.” Down on the sand, a peacock of a dancer demonstrated to the initiates a perfect example of somersaulting the bull. “Who do you think delivered the order evicting me from my house? My own property, handed down from father to son through countless generations, can you imagine that?” With each word, he raised his voice higher, until Yishharu on his left turned his head. Pasiphae continued to remain oblivious, lost in her own private world.
“Is something amiss, Rasuros?” Yishharu asked politely.
Dadarusa smoothed things over. “The excitement of that young dancer’s sprint was a bit much for him.” The enforced courtesy between them might as well have been the clashing of bulls’ horns, the air was so charged with enmity.
“Ah, I see.” Yishharu’s smile did not extend to his eyes.
Daidalos waited for the roar of the crowd to subside before addressing Dadarusa. “I apologize for Scribe Kurra. I will instruct his assistant to greet you.”
The Minos’s heir waved the offer aside. “It is not necessary to go to that much trouble, Daidalos—and, please, no apologies about the house, either.” He raised a hand to forestall any argument. “How are you finding it?”
Daidalos would have preferred to discuss something less awkward. “I use only a few rooms.”
The heir smiled, showing white, even teeth. “May you have excellent use from those. Far better that you occupy them than others.” Dadarusa shot a pointed glance toward the high priest and his sister.
The Minos nodded off again. Dadarusa accepted a painted elephant ivory fan from his servant and plied it to cool the perspiration beading his face. Daidalos, too, possessed a fan, a gift from one of the bull priests; the ivory frippery sat unused on his lap.
Servants replenished the drinks and refreshments on the little inlaid tables between them. “Master Daidalos,” Dadarusa said, “are you familiar with the Minos’s customary ritual of installment?”
“No.” Daidalos’s head was beginning to ache. He was tired of games and spectacles, and trying to second-guess the elite.
Dadarusa proceeded to explain the traditional nine years’ oath taking, the ceremonial walkway—matters Daidalos had learned about from Balashu. “The next installment is in four years—provided, of course, that there is a serviceable walkway.” Turning his head, he favored Daidalos with a meaningful look. “I understand there are certain—”
“Are you asking me to build a new walkway?” Daidalos cut in. Damn the nobility! Did they think he had all the time in the world to wait on their pleasure while they played their interminable games? “The answer is yes. Yes, a ceremonial walkway is part of the temple plan.”
“I see.” Dadarusa’s eyes widened with surprise at the display of lowborn bluntness. “You are so...refreshingly plain-spoken.” Nonetheless, his demeanor suggested that he considered Daidalos’s shortness anything but refreshing.
“An architect has no time to mince words.” Daidalos experienced a twinge of regret for having interrupted the heir; his candor had not served him well elsewhere, either. “Some of the original walkway remains. It will be a small matter to restore it once the old pavement is taken—”
“What’s that?” Snuffling wetly, the Minos came wide awake to a particularly loud cheer from the crowd. “Has Yaquar double-flipped the bull?”
Dadarusa shifted his attention to his father. “No, Father.” The weary patience undercutting his reply suggested that Yaquar the bull dancer had not performed in decades. “An initiate somersaulted off the bull’s back.”
After the dance, Yishharu invited Daidalos to stroll with him behind the high priestess’s slow-moving sedan chair. “Did you find the Minos and his heir to be interesting company today?”
Again, with the roundabout speech. Daidalos concentrated on keeping his patience. “Yes.”
Cypress trees shaded the path, offering protection from the sun but little relief from the heat. “Did Dadarusa ask you to restore the ceremonial pathway?” Yishharu waited but a fraction of a second before answering his own question. “Yes, I already know he did, and that you agreed in a most off-putting manner. I was sitting right there. I will assume that your shortness was due to the heat and noise, and not because you find the project distasteful.”
The high priest’s sudden directness agitated Daidalos far more than had his circuitousness. “Why did you invite me to sit with them? You had a reason. I want to know what it is.”
If Daidalos thought his bluntness would elicit a straight answer, then he discovered to his further annoyance that he was mistaken. Yishharu took his time, clasping his hands behind his back, surveying the construction on the
hill. “You would make a very poor nobleman, Master Daidalos,” he finally said.
“What makes you think I have any desire to be a nobleman?”
Yishharu hummed deep in his throat. “No. You have no patience for our intrigues. I envy that about ordinary people. They have no need to dance about and mince their words. Yes, Dadarusa wants the walkway restored, but not for his father. Rasuros will probably pass away before he sees another celebration of installment. Dadarusa wants it for himself, as you can probably guess. I have no objection to you giving him what he wants—indeed, it would be foolish to go against centuries of tradition and risk the gods’ anger by refusing. Your restoring the walkway will win the Minos’s faction to your side. Let Dadarusa see the storehouses and workshops, and your new project in the north quarter, but keep in mind that the sanctuary is strictly for authorized workers and priests.” Yishharu nodded. “A favorable report from him will ease tensions between his supporters and the priesthood.”
Daidalos could see Pasiphae’s head drooping. He wondered how ill she truly was, or whether her brother had drugged her. “You used me today.” He decided right then and there that he had had enough, and stopped in the middle of the path. “You put me on display to show your enemies that all is well now, that the gods have forgiven you and your sister for violating my guest-right and killing my son. Except that everything isn’t all well and good, because I haven’t forgiven you.” He thumped his chest to emphasize his point. “I’m an architect, High Priest, not a pawn to be used as a fulcrum between you and your enemies.”
Waving his attendants and guards ahead, Yishharu regarded him with an admixture of scorn and astonishment. “A pawn is exactly what you are, Daidalos, whether you like it or not,” he answered in a tone of quiet menace. “We mortals are all pawns for the gods to use. And whoever said that the Minos and his son were my enemies? My sister has no use for them, no, but I have a different view of things.”
Daidalos could not care less what that view was. “Save it for someone who cares about your intrigues. The gods didn’t tell you to parade me on that platform today. Whatever arrangement you want to make with the Minos, settle it between yourselves and leave me out of it. My only concerns in this world are the building of the temple and having my son’s bones returned to me.” Once again, his directness was running away from him, but if he did not say something now he would find himself inextricably trapped among the vultures, mired in matters far above his station.
Yishharu quirked an irritated brow. “I sought to honor you today. Was I mistaken?”
“You have a strange idea of honor.” Daidalos reached behind his neck to undo the cumbersome agate and gold necklaces, and thrust them at Yishharu. “You can’t buy me with these.” Then he turned on his heel and started for home.
“It was a gift, Master Daidalos,” Yishharu called after him. “I do not deal in bribes.”
Daidalos paused long enough to glance back at the high priest standing in the middle of the path with the glittering necklaces spilling from his hand. “There’s only one thing I ever wanted from you and I never got it. Now it’s too late.”
*~*~*~*
Pasiphae’s head was clearer now, but she still suffered spells of lightheadedness and she was weak from long inactivity. She no longer took poppy to alleviate her nightmares. As the winter months brought inclement weather, she exercised indoors by pacing the corridors and climbing up and down the stairs. She forced herself to eat to regain the weight she had lost, and attended to backlogged correspondence. Yishharu brought her daughters to visit, but not her sons. “They’re doing quite well with their fathers,” he explained. “You will see them in the autumn.”
To console her, he bundled her in furs and led her to the house’s north-facing portico. The rain had lessened enough to allow a view of the central courtyard and the old sanctuary; the storehouses on the northeast where obscured by mist. “Look there.” Yishharu indicated the construction rising to the east. “The sanctuary of Poteidan is finished. This morning’s little temblor is a good omen. The Earth-Shaker is eager to move into his new dwelling.”
Pasiphae nodded, despite the panic she had experienced as the house shook and ceramics tumbled onto the floor. “It is not finished until the horns of consecration are mounted.”
“No,” Yishharu concurred, “but next spring the builders will build the upper stories for the sanctuary of Rhaya. It will not be long before the goddess, too, has a splendid new home. That will make you and her glad.”
She tried to summon enthusiasm for the construction, but her mind kept wandering back to the poppy-induced nightmare of stumbling about in subterranean passages. Yishharu had said that the lower sanctuary of Poteidan was maze-like to confound evil spirits.
“I have not had word of Asterios these last twelve months.” She turned away from the view. “Tell me the truth. Is he alive or dead?”
Yishharu attempted to evade the question. “When you are strong enough—”
“I am strong enough now, damn you,” she hissed. Shrugging off his hand, Pasiphae stumbled back to her chamber where the brazier offered warmth. Yishharu followed.
Once inside, she continued, “No more lies. He’s dead. The way everyone looks at me, they know something. I know, too, in here.” She pressed her thumb between her breasts. “I dreamt of bulls and blood, and my son imprisoned underground. So tell me the truth. Is Asterios dead?”
Yishharu urged her with gestures to lower her voice lest the servants hear. Pasiphae could not care less because, as she had just made clear, they knew, anyway. All he wanted these days was for her to remain quiet and biddable. His sudden assertiveness alarmed her, when it had always been his place to obey.
“Yes,” he finally admitted, “he is dead.”
Pasiphae clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle her groan. It was one thing to suspect the truth, quite another to have it confirmed.
“I did what had to be done,” Yishharu added. “Now he belongs to the gods.”
She had to sit, her legs were shaking so hard. “You sacrificed him like—like a bull?”
“Like a servant of the gods called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice,” he amended. “He did not suffer but went consenting, lulled by the milk of the poppy.” Yishharu placed a hand on the high back of her chair without touching her, whereas in earlier days he would have enfolded her in his embrace. That, too, was an unwelcome change. “Poteidan found favor with the sacrifice. I have told you how splendid the sanctuary is. I regret being unable to show you around, but, alas, women are forbidden in Poteidan’s realm.”
Truth be told, Pasiphae did not want to visit the god’s sanctuary, and for the same reason she refused to seek the goddess in the sacred Eleuthia Cave. She had grown afraid of the dark. At night, she slept with the lamp burning and a handmaiden in her bedchamber to guard against demons. Had Yishharu taken her below, her nightmare would have gained substance. She would have discovered Asterios’s shade haunting those twisting passageways just as the spirits of her enemies inhabited the misshapen stalagmites of the sacred cave. Who was to say that the scarlet ocher staining the sanctuary floor, as her brother had described, had not been mixed with her child’s blood?
Yishharu spoke again, “Rest easy, Pasiphae. Spring will bring renewal and celebration. Yallit has agreed to become my wife.”
Gods, the news kept getting worse! Not only had Yishharu become betrothed without her permission, but he had to choose Yallit? Only a woman of holy Europa’s ancient blood could become high priestess. Orata had been an exception. Yallit, already acting as Pasiphae’s proxy, could become another.
That was it. Pasiphae knew she must resume her duties first thing tomorrow. “Where will you live?” It was bad enough that Yallit behaved like the mistress of the household whenever she visited. Bad enough that she occasionally “borrowed” the high priestess’s paraphernalia. There was no way under heaven that Pasiphae was going to allow that woman to live under the same roof.
“We will live in my house. Are you not pleased?” Yishharu’s tone indicated that he knew all about his sister’s objections and did not care.
Pasiphae spent a restless night brooding by the brazier. Senehat laid out her priestess garb for tomorrow morning. The sight, coupled with the knowledge that she would once again serve the goddess, heartened her somewhat. Returning to the sanctuary meant regaining control.
She decided to browse through her jewels. When Senehat brought the inlaid casket, Pasiphae took it from her and upended the contents onto her bed. Gold, silver and gemstones sparkled against the snow-white fleeces. She owned several magnificent pieces inherited from her great-aunt, including earrings of emerald green and blue faience, and a matching...
The ring was missing. Pasiphae checked atop and under the fleeces, stood to shake out her sleeping gown and ordered Senehat to search, but the ring was gone. Yallit. That bitch must have helped herself during Pasiphae’s illness. It must have been recently, too, as Pasiphae remembered having worn it for her brief appearance at the festival of the vines.
If Yallit had to steal anything, she should have taken the beautiful necklace of golden lilies and lapis that had belonged to High Priestess Orata. Pasiphae had never dared wear it except in private, where the pleasure of its weight around her neck reminded her that the usurper was gone and Europa’s line triumphant. Nowadays, however, it seemed a thing ill-omened, recalling dark deeds and the goddess’s displeasure.
Whatever happened, Pasiphae was not going to end up like that woman, eliminated and forgotten—or, gods forbid, like her own mother, a timid, wilting wallflower dominated by her husband and dead by twenty-five. If Yishharu imagined that he could rule Pasiphae as their father had ruled Iltani, then she would teach him otherwise.