by Laura Gill
It seemed he remained there a long time. Rusa and Nindani paced under the tree, constantly peered toward the hill, and probed each other with questions neither one could answer.
Eteokles at last returned. “Sure enough, the smoke is coming from Knossos. We can return to Katsamba and await news, or proceed.”
“Is it a raid?” Nindani asked.
“Hard to say.” Eteokles’s brows furrowed. “It might be the smoke of many burnt offerings, or a fire might have broken out and spread. We are too far away to judge it accurately.”
Knossos had never been attacked, for the favor of the gods and the strength of the Minos’s rule made the land secure. But the gods had withdrawn their favor, Rusa reminded himself. If a raid was underway, or even if a fire had started and was spreading through the town, he must be with his family, protecting them, and getting them to safety. “I know what I want to do,” he said, “but I won’t choose for you, Nindani.”
She held her head high. “I’m with you, Rusa. If the temple is under attack, we must know.”
They moved ahead with caution, avoiding the road as Eteokles advised. The young Hellene offered no further speculation, especially on the subject of raiders, saying only, “Guessing breeds panic.”
The wind blew from the south, carrying with it an acrid tang of smoke. Before long, Rusa and Nindani discerned the haze clinging to the town’s horizon. The temple mount appeared unaffected, and the smoke itself was a grayish color, not black or billowing or seemingly as dire as the smoke from the fires a year ago.
A cold sweat lathered Rusa’s brow as he trudged on. Had the raiders come from Archanes, or Tylissos? Were they foreigners like the Anatolian sailors, come up from Amnissos? The Anatolian captain had remarked that Knossos was the first place he had encountered outside his own town of Wilusa that seemed prosperous. Had he gathered likeminded men and returned to take what they could, from the storehouses or otherwise? Dusani was a very beautiful woman—well-bred Kaphti women made desirable slaves. Rusa reached for the dagger hanging at his belt, unable to bear the thought of his beloved wife or children as foreign captives.
Guessing breeds panic. What else was he to think? Perhaps a fire had broken out, spreading to other houses. Which ones, then? Dusani and the children slept on the third floor. Of course, they would not be upstairs right now, but if the fire had started during the night... Gods, if only his legs would propel him faster!
At length, they reached a herdsman’s shack, where a trio of snarling, burn-scarred black hounds prevented them entering the wattle enclosure to inquire of the owner; apart from the guard dogs, the only other animals Rusa spied were a pair of scraggly goats with the same scarred hides the dogs sported. It was rare to see an unblemished animal these days.
Then the herdsman himself, cursing under his breath, kicking his hounds for the noise they made, emerged to investigate. “Whatever you want,” he growled at the newcomers, “I haven’t got any.” He noticed Nindani’s black robes and Eteokles’s tall shield and boar tusk helmet. Realizing his visitors were no mere beggars, he changed his attitude. “You’re from the town?”
Eteokles did the talking. “What is that smoke?”
“That?” The herdsman jerked his chin in the direction of the town. “Riots.” He shrugged. “Was yesterday. Maybe something about the Minos confiscating food stores. I hustled out of there when the fighting started.”
Rusa’s mind became crowded with images of looting and rape, of malcontents like Sammaro dragging his wife and children into the streets to murder them. “Are they still fighting?”
The herdsman shook his head. “Couldn’t say, but not likely. It was much worse yesterday.”
Rusa would not hear of staying behind while Eteokles scouted ahead, and Nindani expressed similar sentiments. Eteokles agreed to escort them into the danger area on the condition that they followed his instructions without argument. “If I find there is too much danger to proceed, then you will turn back and go to ground.”
Although Rusa gave his word, he unsheathed his dagger and prepared to defy the Hellene’s orders. If his family was in jeopardy, then only the immortals themselves would be able to restrain him.
A bizarre sight awaited them at the north edge of town. Corpses swung from the branches of the oak alongside the pasture, where the churned and mounded earth marked the initial mass graves. Rusa started counting out of habit, to avoid acknowledging the ravens pecking at the corpses, to avoid the dead themselves. Nearby, a hastily-erected gallows accommodated more corpses. Who were the hanged—the rioters or their hapless victims? Women as well as men hung there. Some dangled mere inches off the ground.
Drawing shallow breaths against the stench of voided bowels and bladders and decomposition, Rusa compelled himself to scan the faces of the dead in search of someone, anyone, he might have known. If his wife was twisting at the end of a rope, if one of his children...
Ensham. Rusa thought he recognized the junior scribe. He had to blink to clear his vision, and look again. Yes, it was the young scribe. Then he saw a shepherd, a widowed weaver, a potter, all faces he had seen gathered around Sammaro. But he did not see the pestilential preacher himself.
Nindani circulated among the forest of dangling legs, murmuring names, and sketching the sign of the labrys in the air. “We should leave.” She gestured to the ravens. “The dark goddess’s servants have claimed this place.”
The streets were deserted but for the Hellenes on patrol. Eteokles approached the captain, saluted him, and explained that he was escorting his charges as per the Minos’s instructions. Rusa could not follow but a few words when the men switched to the Hellene tongue. It fell to Eteokles to translate, informing him and Nindani that the riotous instigators had been executed, and that the town was now under martial law. “Priestess,” he said to Nindani, “you will have to excuse me, but you cannot go anywhere alone. Let me take the master scribe home, then I will escort you to the temple.”
Armed servants in Kikkeros’s entryway called out a challenge. Holding out his hands, Rusa answered back, “I am Master Scribe Dadarusa, son-in-law of Lord Kikkeros, and I live here, in case you’d forgotten.” He stated the latter with an air of considerable exasperation, because the last thing he wanted then was to be held up at the door. “The Hellene bodyguard Eteokles is with me.” To his further aggravation, no one was calling back in greeting. “The woman is a priestess of Hekate.”
“Dadarusa?” a familiar voice shouted.
“Kikkeros?”
His father-in-law strode out, ordered his servants to stand down with a preemptory gesture, then seized Rusa in a fierce embrace, thumping him across the back. Yishana accompanied him. “Thank the gods. We’re all still rattled.”
Rusa did not care about them at that particular moment. “Dusani!” he shouted. “Dusani!”
Scarcely had he called out than his wife came rushing down the stairs, her loose hair flying behind her, straight into his arms. “Oh, Rusa!” She breathlessly kissed his mouth, his cheek, even his neck. “Thank the gods you’re safe!”
He grasped her tight around the waist, wanting nothing more than for the kissing to continue. “The children, they’re all right?”
Dusani indicated yes, that everyone was safe, as she regained control of herself. Rusa noticed the signs of sleeplessness and worry etched on her face. “Anepadu—the scribe, you remember—came around to warn us that the mob was coming. Sammaro led them, his followers, and that girl, the young priestess that they called Potnia, she incited her followers, too.”
“Sammaro?” After the corpses he had seen hanging on the tree, he was not surprised hearing the preacher’s name, but it alarmed him to think that the madman and his followers might have targeted his family. “He tried to attack you?”
Dusani took him by the hand, and led him into the main room where he could sit and refresh himself. Nindani followed. Eteokles remained behind to confer with Kikkeros and Yishana. “They tried to force their way into several h
ouses, but Anepadu’s warning saved everyone. We had the house barricaded long before they arrived. The Minos had archers stationed on the rooftops and his Hellenes in the streets.” She shuddered. “You should have heard the fighting outside. It was awful.”
“I saw bodies hanging from the oak tree in the pasture, and from a gallows,” Nindani remarked.
“We heard that many were captured and executed, those that weren’t killed in the fighting.” Dusani paused for the servant girl carrying cups and a jug of wine. “Potnia was carried back to the temple, maybe put to death, but Sammaro’s still out there. No one knows where.” She heaved a tremendous sigh, having related the information all in one breath. “I haven’t let the children out of my sight since this business started.”
Rusa felt cold, hearing that. If Sammaro had targeted the house, that meant he was actively trying to kill Rusa or members of his family. He was certain—so certain it might as well have been revealed to him by an oracle—that the danger would persist until men, the immortals, or the elements brought down the madman. “Eteokles and I are here now,” he assured his wife.
Nindani spoke, “A herdsman we met said the Minos threatened to confiscate the food stores, and that’s what started the chaos.”
Dusani sat down, nearest the idols on the hearth curb, her nervous energy radiating through her attempt to relax. “I heard the rumor myself. Apparently the Minos sent representatives to Kydonia, Phaistos and Sacred Three to buy what food and livestock they could, but they came back empty-handed, with word that Phaistos has been burned and abandoned. Same with the grain ships he sent to Egypt. The Egyptians, too, have suffered. Father heard from a court official that unless King Amenhotep releases more grain to our merchants, rations are to be cut further.” Dusani twisted her fingers in her lap as if they were skeins of wool. “That’s where the riot started. I think they must have been on their way to attack the Minos’s residence, from the things they were shouting and what Anepadu said, but they lost control, they lost their minds, and started smashing everything and looting.”
Rusa tossed down the wine. Heavily diluted, more water than fermented grape, it soothed him little except to moisten his throat. “I’m going upstairs to see the children—oh, I forgot. I brought something for you.” Rummaging in his leather satchel, he produced the smoked fish and mussels.
Anath and Beruti were closeted in their room taking lessons with Naptu while Zabibe tended the baby. Rusa gathered his daughters to him, kissing them and listening to their grievances. Isiratos was elsewhere, on watch with the servants, Naptu reported. “He has behaved admirably in this crisis, like a man, guarding his mother and siblings. You should be proud.”
Rusa was not so martial-minded that he could find pleasure in the prospect of his son brawling with rioters. Still soothing his daughters, he instructed Zabibe to leave Khasos with him, and venture downstairs to find his son.
Isiratos shambled into the room a quarter-hour later. His eyes were dark-rimmed, bloodshot, and he blinked repeatedly, obviously trying to keep his eyelids open. He wore a dagger stuck through his belt, and carried a cudgel. Rusa stood and embraced his eldest child tightly. “I want you to lie down. Close your eyes,” he murmured in Isiratos’s ear. “You’re no use to anyone if you’re half-dead on your feet.”
“You weren’t home, Father,” Isiratos mumbled, “and Eteokles...”
“He’s returned.”
But Isiratos would not agree to rest until after the Hellene warrior escorted Nindani home and admonished him to lie down. Rusa bit back a father’s resentment as well as the temptation to give his son a direct order, knowing how much Isiratos admired Eteokles, and seeing how much easier the boy would sleep with the assurance that his idol was once more standing guard.
Fortunately, Rusa’s daughters did not require the same reassurances. They felt safe enough now that he had come safely home and could cuddle them. “Ask your mother what surprise I brought you from Katsamba,” he told them.
“Is it a dolphin?” Beruti asked.
Of all the things his eight-year-old daughter might have guessed, Rusa had not anticipated that. “Why do you think it’s a dolphin?”
“Because Marineus left octopi and squid, and many other fishes in the fields when he flooded the land,” she explained. “I heard people tried to catch them with their hands, but because they didn’t take their boats, they were washed away.”
Ten-year-old Anath groaned, “Marineus swept the boats away, too, stupid. The fish weren’t a gift. The god was angry.”
“Hush, now,” Rusa urged. “Anath, don’t call your sister names. Beruti, you weren’t wrong. I brought fish and mussels from Katsamba for you and your brother to eat. Tonight, there will be a feast.” Excited, the girls thanked and kissed him, and promised they would behave.
Khasos was cheerfully babbling, reaching out, eager for his father’s attention. Rusa indulged him, babbling and smiling back. Sometimes Rusa wondered if his infant son comprehended the troubles besetting the family, if he remembered the scorching wind from which his parents had shielded him. He must be suffering the same hunger pangs, and that worried his parents, as babes were so fragile, so susceptible, so desired by the childless dark goddess.
When Dusani came upstairs to check on him, Rusa returned Khasos to Zabibe, then escorted his wife into their bedchamber. “Stay a while with me,” he urged. “You look exhausted.”
She heaved a sigh. “I have things to do.”
Rusa started undressing. “Yes. One of them is getting some rest. When was the last time you slept?” Dropping his shoe to the floor, he extended his arms. “Come, keep me company.”
Dusani relented, and the two of them shared a comfortable hour under the fleeces, sleeping in each other’s arms before treating the children to supper.
Martial law eased the next day, allowing civil workers, officials, and all others with legitimate business to go abroad. Hellenes continued to patrol the streets, and archers stood sentry on rooftops overlooking major thoroughfares. Eteokles accompanied Rusa to the Registrar’s office, where Rusa’s assistants presented him with the tallies taken during his absence.
“There are forty-five on the gallows, sir,” the head assistant said. “The bodies will be released for an official tally and burial in two days. Also, we had two deaths the day you departed, and seventeen yesterday.” Sampa crossed each item from his list as he reported it. “We buried the two, submitted the tallies to the Minos and temple under Priestess Iput’s seal. Today’s burials are the sixteen victims from yesterday’s riot, and a pregnant woman who succumbed to illness brought on by a miscarriage. The infant wasn’t yet quickened, so we omitted it.”
“Have the priestesses of Eleuthia been notified?” Rusa had taken and was affixing his seal to the fair copies of the Katsamba tallies before submitting them. Special procedures governed the deaths of pregnant women and unborn infants, and the temple required separate tallies.
Sampa nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Among the victims, Rusa found Anepadu, his throat slashed. He remembered Dusani telling him how the scribe had gone through the neighborhood warning people of the mob’s advance.
“Thank you,” Rusa murmured. Anepadu had obviously paid the ultimate price for his courage.
Additional Hellene guards attended the burial. Kleonikos appeared with explicit instructions regarding the corpses of the rioters who had been killed during the fighting. “They will be interred by night, at a crossroads outside the town.” He spoke in a hushed tone, and strictly to Rusa, lest the families who were gathering by the prepared grave in order to bid farewell to their loved ones should overhear. “Master Scribe Ramush will take those tallies himself.”
Ramush was welcome to supervise all the night burials he wanted. Rusa was simply grateful for the reprieve.
There were no scenes of disorder at the graveside. The families wept, tossed down colored pebbles and homemade talismans, and mouthed the prayers when the priestess of Hekate, Head Priestess
Poulxeria herself, invoked the dark goddess to watch over the shades during their journey to the hereafter.
Sammaro, now being a fugitive, did not appear to disrupt the rites, yet Rusa found himself on edge, constantly pausing and peering over his shoulder as he took the tallies. He sensed the same static electricity in the air as presaged a storm, though the day was clear. Danger lurked like demonic forces in the shadows, waiting on the periphery of one’s vision rather than in plain sight. It tainted every breath and settled upon one’s nerves as hot-cold shivers of dread. Rusa did not know whether there was about to be another riot, or whether Poteidan was about to shake the earth again, but with the unerring conviction of an oracle he knew something terrible was about to happen.
As the ditch diggers shoveled earth into the grave, and the families slowly dispersed, Poulxeria drew him aside. “There are other tallies, which the temple has already taken and delivered to the Minos.” She never attended civil funerals, and rarely left the temple. Her presence, coupled with the sibilant quality of her lisping, added to Rusa’s unease. “You may hear rumors of a certain house at the end of your street. A great sacrilege was done there. Mother Rhaya and Lady Hekate were profaned. Now, we may not elaborate further on the nature of the outrage. All you need know, Registrar, is that we have sealed the premises, and consigned the dead within to the care of the dark goddess.”
If she could not reveal everything, he thought sourly, then she should not have said anything. In his present humor, her words left too much to the imagination.
Returning to the office, Rusa made his fair copies, affixed his seal, relinquished the temple’s copy to Poulxeria, then headed toward the Minos’s residence. His feelings of uneasiness had not diminished with the completion of the day’s work. “Do you know what Priestess Poulxeria meant?” he asked Eteokles. But the Hellene had not overheard the conversation, forcing Rusa to elaborate. “A house at the end of the street that’s been sealed, where a vile sacrilege was done. Have any of your colleagues mentioned what might have happened there?”