by Laura Gill
Yikashata murmured, “This tablet was inscribed by our ancestor, Isiratos, one of Daidalos’s personal scribes. He ordered one hundred and forty planks of wood for the construction of the first Labyrinth. Sometimes one discovers little treasures like this, links to our ancestors, and that’s a better thing than silver or gold.”
Rusa was not quite sure a clay tablet was better than gold, but it was interesting. “Did Daidalos write anything?”
“Zuhatta says he did, except it’s in Akkadian, and only the priests of Daidalos are permitted to see or handle it. Why are you asking?” Yikashata’s warm breath caressed Rusa’s ear. “Are you curious about the relics the priest-architects keep? You would need a special dispensation to enter their shrine, and that is not easy to come by. Even I have not set foot there.”
Rusa had decided he was not so curious that he wanted to become a priest-architect. He touched a careful fingertip to the tablet, which he could at least read. The surface above Isiratos’s name had seen greater wear than elsewhere. Other scribes, maybe ancestors themselves, must have run their fingers over the name.
“Do you like it?” his father asked.
“It’s all right.”
Yikashata laughed softly. “Meaning, you think it’s interesting, but you’re eight years old and you don’t find it that interesting.” Rusa felt his father’s sturdy arm encircle him. “That’s all right. I think you’ll appreciate it better when you’re older.”
*~*~*~*
Kumurru died that winter.
The moment the family returned from the burial and bid farewell to the last funeral guests, there was an immediate change. Rusa’s mother threw open the doors and windows, despite the cold, to air out the house, and tossed on the midden those belongings that had not accompanied Kumurru into the tomb. Rusa was not sure, but he thought he sensed a certain gleefulness about the way his mother dealt with his grandfather’s passing.
Yikashata hired plasterers and artisans to refurbish the house. The pavement in the courtyard was repaired, and the portico and balustrades fitted with hanging plants. Inside, artisans painted the walls with wonderful frescoes: water lilies and waving fronds of papyri, dancing ladies, and trees. Rusa watched the men working. As far as he knew, only wealthy people and sanctuaries could afford such wonderful frescoes, and now his own father was spending like a rich man.
That was not all. Yikashata bought new furniture of sweet-smelling cedar from Byblos, alabaster lamps with wonderful silhouettes that appeared when the wicks were lit, painted vessels, and other treasures that Rusa and his brothers were not allowed to touch. “These things,” Kitane explained, “are for your father’s guests.”
When the house was ready, people came. Not Kumurru’s dour acquaintances, but important people from court, men and women who wore pleated Egyptian linen, brocaded wool, and jewels, and gilded their conversation with laughter. There was delicious food: oysters and mussels, grilled fish, seasoned, stewed meats, octopus, and sweets that the boys regularly tried to filch from the kitchen.
Kitane adorned herself in all the jewels and sumptuous colors that Kumurru had begrudged her. She wore scent and cosmetics, as though it was a festival day, and on those occasions she made Rusa and his brothers don stiff, scratchy formal clothes and march downstairs to greet the company. While Rusa liked spying on his father’s guests, he did not necessarily enjoy being paraded before them like the pet monkey one of the ladies brought. Their wealth and prominence overawed him, so his palms turned clammy, and his rehearsed courtesies stuck in his throat. He did not want to embarrass his father, as he had done with Tarina.
Yikashata did one more thing: he increased Naptu’s wage, and made him his sons’ official pedagogue. Naptu began to dress better and put on weight, and before long he was spending most of his time at the house.
Dida began his formal lessons just after midwinter, while Balinaru spent the short afternoons with Zuhatta at Ripanna’s house, learning the stonemason’s trade. He always returned in the early twilight glowing with accomplishment, and eager to share what he had learned.
“I can see the blocks in the hill before we cut them!” he exclaimed, though as a mere apprentice he had yet to touch the rocks in the quarry; first he had much to learn about tools, terrain, the properties of various stones, and finish his schooling in arithmetic. “Ripanna says only true masons have a feel for rocks like that. It’s a special gift from Lady Potnia.”
Rusa personally thought he was exaggerating to get attention, but his father took Ripanna’s praise very seriously, and made an offering of wine and faience ornaments to the Mother of the Mountains.
A fresh breath of spring warmed the air when Yikashata took Rusa aside to explain things. “All that you see here, the improvements to the house, the guests, everything that’s changed since your grandfather died—your mother and I have done that for you and your brothers. Especially for you, young man.” He affectionately touched the tip of his finger to Rusa’s forehead. “You are going to become a scribe.” A chuckle escaped him. “I know, Dadarusa. You would rather go to sea and have adventures, because that’s what boys dream about, but you have a natural talent for signs and figures, and remembering what Naptu dictates—or did you think I didn’t know that you had already memorized the Maxims of Ptahhotep?”
Rusa listened silently. While he was proud of his accomplishments in the schoolroom, and had accepted what his father had decided months ago, he had yet to discover enthusiasm for a future spent bending over clay tablets taking dictation or straining his eyesight filing documents in a dimly lit archive.
Yikashata seemed to read his thoughts, because he said, “Put a smile on your face, Dadarusa. You’re not going to become just any scribe. You have the talent to become a master scribe like me and serve the Minos in the highest capacity. I mean for you to achieve that honor. When you’re old enough, perhaps in another year or two, I will request his permission to present you at court. Why do you think your mother and I make you put on your good clothes and come down to greet our guests? We are preparing you for that day.”
“Then why do you make Balinaru and Dida come down, too?” Rusa did not know what to think about his father’s revelation, especially after having been led to believe that he was unsuitable for court. Had Yikashata changed his mind? Had one of the noble guests said something? “Are they to be presented with me?”
“No,” Yikashata confessed, “but it would be bad manners to exclude them, not to mention that all the attention would quickly go to your head, and that is something I will not allow.” His tone sharpened. “You will apply yourself to your lessons, master the arts of courtesy and self-control, and prepare to become a discreet and faithful servant of the court. Your happiness has little to do with this. Work is about service—service to the Minos who employs you, and service to the gods—but...”
His fingers slid under Rusa’s chin as Rusa started to hang his head, and his voice softened. “But I assure you that when the time comes, you will see that court can be a very exciting place to be.” Rusa heard a hint of laughter in his words. “Just as exciting as your uncle’s adventures.”
“Is that really true, Father?” Rusa thought it sounded more like something an adult would say to allay a child’s disappointment. “Sailing to strange lands sounds much more exciting.” Not that it would make the slightest difference with regard to his future, but in a month he would be nine, and old enough not to need any more lies. “Even if it is more dangerous.”
“You would think that, young man, but yes, it is true.” Yikashata tousled his hair. “Remember all those months ago when I showed you Isiratos’s tablet, and how I said that sometimes one found little treasures in unexpected places? Life is like that, too. There are treasures all around us, Dadarusa, and plenty of adventures and excitement to be had close to home.”
Seven
Counting the Dead
1520 B.C.
Captain Amanas was not a man who could sit still. Accustomed to strolling u
p and down the length of his ship, or walking through the narrow, winding streets of Terasos, which the Knossians called Minoa Kalliste, he found this formal waiting interminable. Forty-five years old, sinewy, weathered by the elements but still handsome, he embodied action not patience, except that here, in the extravagantly decorated lobby of the Knossian court, his fidgeting attracted disapproving attention, and further agitated the priest beside him.
“He doesn’t take us seriously.” Never mind that he had muttered that particular complaint thrice already, he would utter it as many times as suited him—or until someone alleviated their plight.
“Peace.” The priest Zimrada was meditating, and seemingly oblivious to the occasional tremors rattling the chamber.
Amanas glanced again at the trio of pier-and-partition doors separating the Minos’s audience chamber from the frescoed lobby with its benches, and wondered for the hundredth time why he and the priest of Poteidan were still waiting long after the last petitioners had departed.
Amanas acknowledged that he should have known better. After all, his kinsman, attached to the court as a senior scribe, had warned him that he might not even receive an audience, and not to expect much from the ruler of Knossos should he somehow manage to secure one.
He would not even have wasted his time had the Kallistean refugee community in Katsamba, plagued by food shortages, growing hostilities, and substandard housing, not pressured him into using his tenuous court connections on their behalf. Even his own women urged him to try.
“You have your father’s silver tongue,” his mother had said. “If Dadarusa can secure an audience, surely you can work your charms on the Minos.”
Did she truly think it was going to be that simple? Flattering buyers and wheedling foreign merchants, magistrates, and customs officials was one thing. Getting the Minos to act where he either would not or could not was something else entirely. The growing number of refugees was straining resources, and local officials were working to find solutions to accommodate the displaced Kallisteans and keep the peace. Amanas bore witness to their efforts. What more did the refugee community want? What did they think Minos Hammuras could do that was not already being done?
They wanted him to use his influence with the gods to appease their anger. In that, Amanas admitted a certain degree of uncertainty. Was the Minos not a direct descendant of Poteidan? With that sort of direct access to the immortals, he obviously was not doing his utmost to placate them.
Vibrations from distant thunder reverberated through the air, disrupting Amanas’s thoughts. The hairs on the back of his neck and dusting his arms stood up, confirming his suspicion that the malevolent fire demons plaguing Kalliste had followed the refugees to Kaphtor.
At last, someone came for him and Zimrada, not through the main doors as he anticipated, but from a side passage. Amanas scowled at the perceived breach of manners, relenting only when he recognized the rangy, long-faced man wearing the striped, fringed garment of a scribe. He stood, strode over to the man, and clasped his arm. “Rusa,” he murmured, “what’s taking so long?”
His first cousin Dadarusa was his sole contact at court. Rusa had visited Amanas’s fine seaside house—now abandoned to earth tremors and ashfall—in Terasos seventeen months ago, and had witnessed firsthand the troubles plaguing the Kallisteans.
Nevertheless, the expression on Rusa’s face discouraged optimism. “The Minos was delayed by certain matters requiring his immediate attention,” he explained in a low voice. Bureaucratic euphemisms which told Amanas nothing. Minos Hammuras could have been fucking a comely servant girl, although unlikely at his advanced age, or reviewing the tallies with his scribes. “He will see you now. However, take care not to be presumptuous or otherwise insult him.”
Leaning in, Amanas lowered his voice. “Insult him? He’s the one who’s kept us waiting.”
Rusa expelled a heavy sigh, then led them back through the side door into a service passage. The narrowness and dimness of the space roused Amanas’s misgivings. Men with honest intentions did not deal in dark side passages. His hand instinctively went toward his dagger, fumbling around an empty sheath until he recalled having to surrender all weapons before entering the mansion.
Before they reached the age-blackened door ostensibly leading into the audience chamber, he placed a hand on Rusa’s shoulder to stop him. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. “All the other petitioners passed through the front doors.”
Rusa acknowledged his complaint with a nod. “He’s irritable this afternoon, and the nature of your visit only compounds the situation. One of the petitioners this morning requested—” With an ominous rumble, the passageway suddenly juddered. Amanas felt the vibrations through the soles of his leather sandals, and against his skin. Zimrada clutched the labrys talisman at his throat.
The moment passed. Rusa drew a breath, then continued, “One of this morning’s petitioners was a merchant from Amnissos who was deputized to request extra provisions to support the recent influx of refugees. That’s in addition to the message that arrived from Tylissos asking for priests from the great temple to be sent to conduct special sacrifices. Remember what I told you last night about his temperament. I vouched for you, Amanas. Otherwise he would have dismissed you unheard.”
Amanas knew where this was going. “Do you think we want to be a burden on the court?” Whether the Minos was tired or irritable, Amanas had absolutely no intention of retreating, not after leaving his family and ship to come down from Katsamba and wait all morning. “We’re subjects of the Minos,” he hissed. “Tell him that what we pay him in tribute, he owes us in protection.”
“I know.” As he spoke, worry lines creased Rusa’s lean face. Then he composed himself, becoming once more the consummate court servant. “If you are resolved, then remember my instructions. Lower your eyes, bow your head, and say nothing unless he addresses you.”
Upon opening the door, Rusa ushered Amanas and Zimrada into an audience chamber brilliant with frescoes depicting mountains, stylized olive trees, and bulls. Tapering yellow pillars offered a bright contrast to a blue ceiling patterned with brass stars that caught the reflected light of a dozen oil hanging lamps. Amanas counted a half dozen court officials loitering about.
Rusa wore a deferential air as he approached the dais with its armless, high-backed throne. “Minos,” he said quietly, addressing the ruler of Knossos, “Amanas, son of Lagish, captain of Asterion, from Katsamba, and Zimrada, high priest of Poteidan, from the god’s sanctuary in Minoa Kalliste.”
At eighty-one, Minos Hammuras had outlived both his firstborn son and the people’s memory of his predecessor. Officially, he ruled only Knossos, whose territories included Katsamba, Amnissos, Archanes, and Tylissos, but his influence extended throughout Kaphtor, and far beyond to foreign courts and the Minoas, the colonies he and his ancestors had established throughout the Aegean.
His sagging jowls and heavy-lidded eyes obscured all remaining vestiges of the handsome youth he had been, and his downturned mouth gave him a cantankerous, constipated look. His saffron-yellow tunic was edged with costly purple, and clashed with his henna-rinsed curls. He wore gold earrings, three necklaces of precious lapis lazuli, and his eyelids glittered with gold dust.
Hammuras dismissed Rusa with a perfunctory gesture. While his personal scribe assumed his place nearby, the ruler of Knossos leaned forward to appraise the day’s final petitioners. Amanas immediately noticed that he did not squint. Rusa had advised him that morning that, despite his age, the Minos still possessed his faculties. “Another representative from those bothersome refugees, are you?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
Swallowing back a retort, Amanas replied, “I assure you, Minos, that the Kallisteans sincerely regret having to impose on anyone, but the gods of our island have become hostile. Our priests cannot interpret the omens they send, and therefore we cannot determine which deities have been offended, or how to placate them.” Amanas would have preferred more straightforward la
nguage to the formal diction that Rusa had insisted upon. Any well-born, educated man of Terasos or Knossos could speechify. As a sea captain, Amanas had personally witnessed rafts of pumice, still warm from the bowels of the mountain out of which the fire demons had hurled them, clogging the seas between the islands. He had been caught in ash falling in towns three days east of Kalliste. He had seen a wasteland of blasted trees marking what had once been a lush mountain forest. He had been awakened in the night by the island’s thunderous subterranean rumblings. Those were the things Minos Hammuras needed to hear—or, better still, see with his own eyes.
“And you, Priest?” Hammuras’s sharp gaze raked the frail old man standing beside Amanas. “Are Kalliste’s holy men so deficient in the arts of divining and sacrifice that they must consult us?”
Zimrada spread his heads. “Great Minos,” he intoned beseechingly, “we have not forgotten our obligations to the immortal powers of heaven, earth, and below. We have sacrificed to all, imploring them to relent, but alas, they continue to rain ash upon Minoa Kalliste, and cast stones upon the waters. Gray smoke pours from the summit of the holy mountain. Strange vapors lay low our priestesses in the high places, and our herdsmen and their flocks. Demons poison the water in our wells. Alas! We have done—”
“Enough.” Hammuras waved him silent with a put-upon air. “I have heard all this before.”
Amanas expected a summary dismissal, but to his surprise the Minos turned to the assembled gentlemen of the court. “Priests, learned men, what do you have to add to this matter?”
Zimrada found himself barraged with questions. “You say you sacrificed to all the immortals?” a priest asked, his tone skeptical. “Your people have scores of gods and spirits besides those our colonists brought to Minoa Kalliste. That is a great many deities for your priesthood to remember, is it not? Are you absolutely certain you did not somehow neglect one?”