by Laura Gill
Rusa voiced his doubts. “If the temple is damaged, Dida will have his hands tied.” Assuming his priest-architect brother had survived the earthquake—he did not want to contemplate the awful possibility—Rusa knew that Dida’s foremost responsibility was to preserve the legacy of Daidalos.
He leaned forward to claim a kiss from his wife. “I hate to do this, but I have to leave again. I was not formally dismissed.”
Dusani looked conflicted, but Yikashata immediately understood. “Of course. Naptu’s already said he’ll stay with us, and Isiratos is old enough.” He extended his arms. “Give the baby to me.”
Rusa handed down the infant so he could properly bid farewell to his wife. “If the ground should shake again, or the house look like it’s going to fall down, then head for the pasture. People will be gathering there.” He kissed her forehead. “Forget the furniture or any valuables still left inside. Let Poteidan bring the roof down on any thieves stupid enough to break in.”
Dusani clutched his arm, trying to defer his inevitable going. “It’s not the house I’m worried about.”
“Do you want me to ask your father to send a man?”
“No, Danel’s offered help.” Danel was their next-door neighbor, the middle-aged craftsman Rusa had seen her with before. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Rusa. Don’t do anything foolish, like trying to go back into the mansion for your writing materials. You can borrow mine. Nefret’s already brought them out.”
With a last kiss and a promise, Rusa took his leave. By the time he returned to the mansion, the Minos, irritated and disheveled but none the worse for wear, had emerged. Sammaro nursed a bleeding cut on his forehead, while Annatusu looked downright terrified. Other courtiers milled about, comparing bruises, scratches, and torn raiment. Speculation dominated the conversation. Rusa encountered his father-in-law receiving a report from a servant of his retinue.
“The temple has sustained damage.” Kikkeros nodded in the direction of the temple mount, wreathed in billowing plumes of smoke. “Pyramesos has his men putting out fires around the houses of the processional way and Hellene quarter. If he has anyone to spare, they’re being sent to the temple. By the way, I just sent a man to your house, to make sure Dusani and the children are safe.”
“I just saw them,” Rusa informed him. “They’re all right, but the house is damaged, uninhabitable, I think.”
“Send them on to my house. There’s been little damage.” Kikkeros gazed skyward. “What to make of these omens?”
A commotion in the crowd grabbed Rusa’s attention. “The river god is in flood!” a man’s voice shouted. Other shouts, frantic queries and complaints that he was stirring panic, drowned his, so that neither Rusa nor his father-in-law could hear what was being said.
Kikkeros sent his personal servant to see what was going on. Pitara returned with disturbing news. “The river is surging. It’s coming in higher, at flood levels, and everywhere they’re saying it’s salt water.” The young man shook his head. “I asked around, but no one can explain it except to say Marineus is warring with Kairatos.”
Another omen, another angry god. Rusa strove against the overwhelming sense of helplessness that had dogged him since that morning’s loud, mysterious thunder. When would the gods relent?
He felt his father-in-law’s authoritative hand on his shoulder. “I will look into this, Rusa.” Again, taking charge. “Go attend the Minos.”
At the pasture’s edge, the Minos’s servants had erected a large goatskin tent that he sometimes used on excursions abroad. The sentries waved Rusa through, and once inside he found a place.
The Minos noticed him almost immediately. “There you are, Dadarusa. Where is Ankeros?”
Rusa had forgotten about his colleague. “He was bruised escaping the archive, sir,” he fibbed. “Shall I fetch him?”
Ankeros had, in fact, fallen asleep under the benevolent auspices of the elderly grandmothers waiting under the trees. Rusa hated having to awaken him, but did so as solicitously as he could, and helped him to the tent just in time to be of use. The runner had since returned from Juktas bearing a wax diptych with Head Priest Enarru’s response. Sammaro was about to read aloud when the Minos, seeing the two scribes enter the tent, commanded the priest to hand the diptych to Rusa.
Now thrust into the center of attention, Rusa did his best to lower his gaze, thereby minimizing any perceived threat to the priest, but as he accepted the diptych he nevertheless sensed Sammaro’s hostility.
“‘To Hammuras son of Atarsha, royal Minos, ruler—’”
The Minos interjected, “Skip the salutations, Dadarusa. I only want to know what Enarru says about these omens.”
Nodding his obedience, Rusa started again, “‘A blackness has been observed in the northeast skies. From it issues bolts of lightning, signs from holy Velchanos. Morning becomes night. Darkness gathers over Mallia and Gournia, right to the very slopes of sacred Mount Dikte.’” Rusa lowered the diptych. “That is all, sir.”
Sammaro breached the resulting silence with his unsolicited opinion. “This evil originates with Kalliste.” Annatusu bobbed his head in agreement like the lackey he was. “Velchanos punishes the wickedness of its people.”
“What wickedness have they committed?” Kikkeros challenged. “We’ve never established that.”
“What wickedness?” Annatusu exclaimed. “Oh, come now. We all know how they became too proud and insulted the gods.” Rusa waited with baited breath for examples of Kallistean pride. “Their married women painted themselves scarlet like whores, and their maidens—”
“It’s only their ears that the women paint scarlet, as a sign of marriage,” Kikkeros retorted. “My son-in-law visited Minoa Kalliste just last year, and observed nothing but devotion and piety. The Kallisteans were doing all they could to appease their gods.” As he spoke, he gestured to Rusa.
Rusa labored to remain impassive and not shrink under the withering scrutiny of Sammaro’s gaze.
“Dadarusa is but a scribe,” the priest said dismissively. “What does he know of appeasing the gods?”
“Enough, Priest,” the Minos snapped. “Your vague pronouncements offer me no comfort. Dadarusa?” Rusa stood to attention. “Ah, yes, I remember your absence now. A damned inconvenience.” His tone did not soften. “Well, did you observe any wickedness among the people? Anything to suggest how they might have offended the gods?”
“Nothing, sir.” Rusa swallowed hard, not wanting to make an enemy of a priest. “Everyone I saw was working hard to appease the gods and to repent whatever sins they might have committed. The priests issued strict orders and maintained a constant presence in the town.”
“So we have heard,” one elderly official mused. “You have not interviewed any Kallistean priests, Sammaro, except for that poor old man you and Annatusu harassed yesterday.”
Sammaro harrumphed. “What need is there, when their wrathful gods clearly evicted them from their altars?”
“So you say,” the Minos answered wearily. “Yet Master Scribe Dadarusa is a trustworthy servant, and his report matches all the others I have heard about Kalliste. You provide no answers, Sammaro, except that which any young child could devise. And you, Annatusu, you’ve never said a word that someone else hasn’t spoken first.” He wagged his finger at both priests. Sammaro stood on his dignity. Annatusu turned ashen. “You know nothing, the Juktas priests know nothing, and the temple knows nothing. I will continue to sacrifice because that is what I know to do, even though my heart tells me it is futile. The immortals are against us, and I, for one, am weary of trying to understand why, weary of repentance, weary of offerings, and weary of these portents without explanation. And now I know why you’ve all failed. Maybe there are no gods. No gods! All there is, is chaos, destruction, death.” He ignored the horrified gasps and exclamations of his courtiers. “We might as well have poured our libations through a sieve. We might as well have shit on the altars. The gods aren’t listening because there are no g
ods!”
Rusa tried to shut out the awful words. What the Minos was saying were the ravings of a madman. It was sacrilege, utter blasphemy. The gods would strike him dead, and in their wrath claim everyone around him.
“Stop, my lord!” Sammaro cried. “You must stop this!”
Rising, the Minos extended his bony arms heavenward. “If there are gods, if they’re listening, here, take our horses and bulls. And if they mean to destroy us, well, then let them do it already and get it over with. You hear that, Velchanos? Blast us with lightning. Strike us! STRIKE US DEAD!” His roar pierced the dusk. “Shake the earth, Poteidan, you cranky old Great Bull. Shake it so hard that it splits open and swallows us all. Come on! Your son commands you!”
Annatusu sank to his knees screeching for the Minos to stop. Sammaro clutched the labrys amulet at his throat while muttering prayers.
“Come on, Marineus! Let the waters flood our homes. This waiting for the end consumes me.”
Rusa had never heard such a shocking speech in his life, nor had he ever conceived that anyone in their right mind, much less the Minos himself, would dare challenge the gods.
One young official was bent double in the corner, vomiting. Annatusu had thrown himself on his face to plead for divine forgiveness, and hide the urine stains darkening the front of his robe. Sammaro and three venerable court officials were on their knees. Kikkeros stood dumbfounded, mouth hanging open, and shaking his head. Ankeros clasped a hand over his chest wearing a look of physical pain. Zanda had taken a step back from his master. Even the sentries looked aghast.
Rusa’s knees wobbled, but he managed to remain standing when all he wanted to do was bolt from the tent, to dissociate himself from the insanity he was witnessing.
The Minos slowly, calmly sat down again. He did not acknowledge the panic his outburst had caused. The expression he wore conveyed a sense of satisfaction, even relief. “Annatusu, you pissing weakling, get out of my sight.” The priest scrabbled to his feet, staggered weeping and clutching his soaking robe to the tent flap, and fled. With mingled disgust and envy, Rusa watched him escape.
To his surprise, the Minos’s next utterance was for him. “Dadarusa, leave. Master Scribe Ankeros, attend me.”
Rusa managed a far more dignified exit, but, constricting robes notwithstanding, broke into a run the moment he cleared the tent. He half-expected the gods to answer the Minos’s challenge—to hurl a lightning bolt, to wrench open the earth and swallow the entire town, to send the rushing waters to drown whatever was left.
The servants watching the door of Kikkeros’s mansion ushered him indoors with directions on where to find his family. Dusani occupied the chamber she always used when visiting her father. Rusa found her perched on the edge of the bed, dressed in a shift and combing her hair while the baby gurgled amid the fleeces, the scene an oasis of domestic tranquility.
Dusani met his gaze straight on. “Something’s amiss, Rusa. More than just the earthquake.”
She knew how to read him. “I would rather not trouble you with it.” How could he possibly explain the fact of the Minos’s sacrilege? It was as incomprehensible as wings on a goat.
“Tell me.” Dusani patted the mattress beside her. “Otherwise you’ll be tossing and turning through the night.”
Rusa joined her. “You wouldn’t rather sleep outside?” They had become used to tremors, but after the damage their house had sustained that morning he wondered whether any building could withstand the Earth-Shaker’s wrath.
“I don’t know.” Dusani reached for his hand and squeezed it. “With the ashes falling and the river flooding, outside doesn’t seem any safer. The house isn’t much damaged, and Father wants to stay. I would rather keep the family together.” She leaned against him. “Now tell me what has you so worried.”
“There’s no easy way to say this.” He proceeded to fumble and stammer, start once, shake his head, and begin again. “The Minos committed blasphemy.” There, he said it, though his voice trembled and face burned. “He raged against the gods. He challenged their wrath and denied their very existence. A sane, pious man wouldn’t dare contemplate half the things he said.”
Dusani was ashen. “How can he say such wicked things when many of the gods still favor us? Mother Rhaya granted a good harvest. Dionysus blessed the vines, and Eleuthia continues to bless mothers and their children. Payawon has preserved us against sickness.”
Rusa glanced over at the leather bag containing his borrowed writing materials. “Perhaps.” All he knew was that he dreaded returning to the Minos’s side, for it would be courting suicide. “He’s frustrated, done with the priests and their vague pronouncements. Perhaps he wants to die and doesn’t care who he takes with him.” Standing, he unwound his upper, fringed garment, letting it drop to the floor. “I don’t know, Dusani. I don’t know anything anymore.”
Dusani bent to retrieve the garment, draping it carefully across the back of the chair, as she so often did when he was too tired to care where his clothes fell. “Then let him stretch himself across the altar. Maybe it will do some good.”
Rusa had never heard his wife express such a shocking sentiment, but now, after a tense day laden with surprises, he did not necessarily disagree with her. “Your father was still there when I left,” he told her, “but I think he will return very shortly. When the word gets out...” He stopped there, because he could not gauge what would happen, only that the consequences would be serious. Pious folk would not stand for blasphemy of that degree, and the temple administration—dismiss them though Hammuras did—would come down hard. Maybe it was time to start transferring his allegiance to Pyramesos. “How are the children doing?” he asked.
“They’re asleep,” Dusani assured him, “and your father and Zabibe are with them. Master Naptu and the other servants are staying with Danel to watch over the house. We’ve moved the household stores downstairs, all the food and valuables, except for what I gave Danel’s family for their trouble.” Then she paused. “Rusa, I don’t want you going back tomorrow.”
For a moment, he did not answer. Tearing himself away from the institution he had served during most of his adult life was hard, even after today’s events. Would his father support his decision? More importantly, what were Kikkeros’s thoughts? If he remained steadfast to the Minos, then Rusa might be obliged to take his family elsewhere, or worse, separate from Dusani and the children to ensure their safety. “When your father returns,” he said, “we will talk.”
*~*~*~*
More alarming than that morning’s explosion of thunder was the violence with which some Katsambans, men and women who had hitherto been friendly with Amanas’s family, reacted. A sailor risked life and limb—so he swore, arriving disheveled at Amanas’s door scarcely an hour after the thunder—to warn the captain’s family against venturing outside. “They’ve beaten some poor old woman to death in the marketplace,” he claimed, “and bludgeoned and strung up the men who tried to help her. An offering to Velchanos, they’re calling it.” Ormennos kept glancing over his shoulder, obviously fearful that a mob had followed him. “Any Kallistean—men, women, and children—caught outdoors will be slaughtered.”
So the tension that had been building for months between the refugees and their neighbors, that found occasional release in episodes of fisticuffs and arguments, had finally exploded.
“Are the swells still too rough to launch?” Amanas doubted Marineus would smile on him that day, and the breeze was blowing from the northeast—an unfortunate sign—but he held onto a thread of hope, nonetheless.
Ormennos raked his fingers through his greasy, tangled hair. “The seas are frothing. Marineus is against us.”
Unseasonable weather, still, then. Amanas ushered the reluctant sailor out the door. “Tell the men they must stay on the beach and defend the ship. If we lose Asterion, we’re finished.”
The second he sent Ormennos on his way with a little shove, he bolted the door, and started distributing the weapons
he kept in his sea chest to his two eldest sons. Kyaton and Obodan solemnly accepted the swords, while ignoring their grandmother’s tremulous queries. Eighteen and sixteen respectively, their education aboard Asterion had toughened them up enough that they could hold their own in a fight. Amanas exchanged glances with them, ascertaining that they understood the odds were against them.
“I’d feel better if Titiku and Glaukos were here with us,” Obodan remarked, without pressing the issue. Amanas would have preferred to have the Libyan and giant Hellene with them, too.
“Answer me, Amanas!” Elissa cried. “Is it true they’re killing people? But we’re Katsambans. Surely...”
Amanas avoided looking at her, instead focusing on his Kallistean wife. Arwia was frozen with terror, as silent as their young daughters. Only their third son, nine-year-old Hammaso, displayed any gumption. The boy dashed into his father’s arms. “Can I have a weapon, too?”
White-faced, Arwia shook her head. Amanas removed the dagger from his belt and presented it to his youngest son. “This is not a toy, young man.”
Hammaso nodded as he took the weapon. “I know, Father.”
“Amanas!” Elissa’s frustration was making her a nuisance. “We’re from Katsamba. Surely the neighbors know that.”
A frenzied mob had no sense of reason, which she would have known had she ever witnessed the chaos of one. Amanas elected not to enlighten her. “May the gods watch over us.” At least he had arrived home in time to defend his family. Too bad Zimrada had not accepted his invitation to stay the night at his hearth, but, irritated that Amanas refused to petition Pyramesos, the priest had gone straight back to the hovel he occupied above the waterfront. Though Zimrada might now be in grave danger, a target for disgruntled townspeople, Amanas was not going to go after him when his own instincts told him to stay where he was. He was still thanking whatever god had urged him to ignore the priest’s complaints about his lack of piety and to head home to see to his own affairs.