The Elementals

by Morgan Llywelyn

  They stared at him unresponsively. Meriones felt his ears reddening. Why couldn’t someone else have been sent? Why did these things always happen to him?

  Then one of the goldsmiths, a ruddy, thickset man with bloodshot eyes and an uncut mane of sandy hair, stepped forward and guided Meriones to a stool. “Here, musician, perch on this. And play quietly, don’t distract us.”

  The man’s voice was harsh with the accents of distant Thrace, but Meriones felt a sudden warmth toward him and smiled gratefully. “I’m called Meriones,” he offered.

  “Hmmm.” The other turned back to his table. Then he said “Hokar” over his shoulder as an afterthought before forgetting Meriones entirely and returning to his work.

  Meriones sat on the edge of the stool, trying simultaneously to be inspiring and inconspicuous. He was a success at one of the two, for the goldsmiths paid no further attention to him.

  In mid-afternoon two slaves arrived, bringing watered wine and a tray of bread and cheese. Hokar put down the gold plate he was working on and stood up, stretching. “I need to walk,” he said casually to Meriones. “Do you know your way around this place?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Come, then.” Hokar headed for the door, massaging the muscles of his shoulder with one hand. Glad of the break, Meriones followed him.

  “Working with gold is like working with the sun, isn’t it?” he said, to make conversation. “I mean, molten gold looks like liquid sunlight, doesn’t it? I envy you, really. It must be wonderful to be able to make beautiful things …” His voice trailed off. Hokar did not appear to be listening.

  They sauntered along hallways that wound a baffling route toward the Great Central Court. Once, when Hokar was about to make a turn that would take him into a warren of storerooms, Meriones corrected him with a gentle hand on his arm. Nothing more was said until they reached the colonnaded walkway overlooking the Court. There they stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the constant crowd swirling across the mosaic tiles.

  “I’ve never known a day so hot,” Hokar remarked. Sweat was pouring down his face.

  “It is hot,” Meriones agreed, “hotter than usual. And so still.” That seemed to exhaust the fund of conversation. The two men were quiet for a time.

  Then Meriones volunteered, “The women of Knsos are the most beautiful in the world, don’t you think?”

  “You haven’t seen the women of Thrace,” Hokar replied. But his eyes were following a Cretan priestess of the Snake as she minced past. Like all women in the House of the Double Axes she was fashionably pale, her powdered complexion a marked contrast to the glossy black of her hair. Kohl rimmed her dark eyes, accentuating their almond shape. Her slender body was clad in a flounced skirt of multicolored layers that swung beguilingly above her bare feet and dainty rouged toes. A gem-studded belt defined the impossible smallness of her waist. Above it her breasts bloomed, pushed upward by a tight saffron-colored bodice that clung to her shoulders and upper arms but left her bosom bare. Her erect nipples were sprinkled with gold dust.

  Meriones saluted the priestess and made flattering gestures with his hands, to which she responded with a few softly lisped syllables.

  “You understand her?” Hokar queried.

  “Of course. That is the court language, the Old Tongue still favored by the nobility and the priestly class. One could not be long in Labrys without learning at least a few words of it.”

  “I’ll be the exception. If I have to learn to sound like a dove cooing I prefer to be speechless.”

  Meriones chuckled. “It’s a difficult language,” he agreed. “You never hear it now, outside of the palace. Crete speaks the New Tongue, the language of the markets. You’re quite good at that, I notice, which proves you have a gift for language as well as for creating beautiful objects. I also have a gift for language. I speak several, even one I learned from my grandmother, who spoke the tongue of the Islands of Mist.”

  “You talk a lot,” Hokar observed. “all Cretans talk a lot, don’t they?”

  “We enjoy the arts, including that of conversation.”

  “There is a lot to enjoy here,” Hokar remarked. His eyes were now following a graceful woman dressed in a vivid shade of orange, her fingers and toes weighted with jewels, her nipples painted a brilliant blue. She returned his frank stare with an amused smile.

  “You’d never see anything like that on the mainland,” Hokar said. “My cousin Tereus would consider it an invitation to rape.”

  Meriones was shocked. “She is merely sharing her beauty! To ignore her would be rude, but it would be ruder still to abuse her as a result of her generosity.”

  “Hmmm.” Hokar dug his unpolished fingernails into his beard, scratching. “I suppose it’s this Cretan worship of beauty that creates such a good climate for artisans, so I shouldn’t joke about it. We’re given opportunities here we would receive nowhere else. I devoted years of my life to obtaining an invitation to come to Crete just as an apprentice goldsmith, whereas in Thrace I was already considered a master.”

  “What is Thrace like?”

  “Rugged country. Breeds rugged people. We have no patience with effeminate manners in Thrace.”

  “We are not effeminate,” Meriones protested, stung at last by the other’s patronizing tone. “We are an elegant people. You mainlanders don’t understand elegance.”

  Hokar grinned. “Not in our heads, perhaps. But watch me at work and then tell me my hands don’t understand elegance.”

  That night over their meal Meriones spoke to his wife about Hokar. “He’s a gruff sort of fellow, devoted to his work. He keeps to himself, mostly. But I know he has a kind heart, and he’s a brilliant artisan. It’s a treat to watch him, it truly is. I wish you could see him take those big paws of his and move them this way and that—and then something delicate and exquisite emerges. I could watch him for hours.”

  Sundown had marked the beginning of a feast day, and Tulipa had purchased a small kid in the marketplace. The remnants of the meal, still redolent of spice and honey, lay on their plates. She picked idly among the bones. “You are always trying to make friends with the most unlikely people, Meriones. If you must attach yourself to someone, why not to someone important who can do you some good?”

  “But I like Hokar. He was nice to me, in his way, and I take it as an honor. Did I tell you he used to make sword hilts for the warrior princes on the mainland?”

  Tulipa sniffed and wiped her greasy fingers on her forearm, working the grease into the skin to keep it soft. It was a habit of the lower classes, one no court lady would have allowed herself. But Meriones made no judgment. After all, as she so often reminded him, her uncle had been a person of importance.

  “You fasten yourself onto someone who doesn’t care if you’re alive or dead,” she continued in an aggrieved voice, “while I sit home alone, fading away for lack of entertainment. If you made some really important friends perhaps you could get me invited to the palace.”

  “If we had children you wouldn’t be bored,” he ventured. “Shall we … go upstairs now?”

  “No. I don’t want to. Listening to you rave on and on about some common Thracian has given me a headache. You are so thoughtless, Meriones.”

  “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize.” Meriones jumped to his feet. “I’ll go dip a cloth in cool water and vinegar to put on your head,” he promised, hurrying away.

  As the days passed, Meriones continued to play in the chamber of the goldsmiths. Hokar gradually accepted his patiently proffered friendship. They began taking a daily stroll together in the gardens, though as long as the heat wave continued even Meriones, who dearly loved sunshine, had to make a conscious effort to keep his step fashionably brisk.

  “No one can remember it being so hot for so long,” he once commented. “I used to think it could never be too sunny, but now I wonder. Is it hot in Thrace, Hokar?”

  “In the summers it is. But we pay no attention.”

  Hokar enjo
yed talking about his homeland, so Meriones constantly plied him for details. The Thracian spoke glowingly of the mountains of his boyhood, and of things he had seen in his travels as an apprentice goldsmith. He alluded to the growing power of the citadels of Mycenae, and described chariot races so vividly Meriones could almost see them. Inflamed by his own words, Hokar embossed a scene of chariots and charioteers into the rim of a platter he was making for The Minos’ table.

  At last the heat broke. The brief Cretan winter arrived, bringing raw damp air that bit into a man’s bones. It was the Season of the Dying God. In the House of the Double Axes the chambers were divided into smaller, more heatable rooms by means of sliding wooden panels. These rooms were heated by bronze braziers. Fires were built in the central hearths of the megaron. Meriones enjoyed staring at the bright tongues of flame, children of the sun. His grandmother, who remembered the Islands of Mist as being always cold, had taught him an appreciation of fire.

  Meriones personally tended the fire in the brazier in the goldsmiths’ chamber.

  He never tired of watching his friend at work. Once Hokar had begun on a piece he tolerated no distractions and would lash out at anyone foolish enough to disturb his concentration. Meriones learned to time his music to the rhythm of the Thracian’s work pattern.

  Melding with the music, Hokar so lost himself in his art that it seemed no man was involved, just a pair of skilled hands taming the molten gold, the melted sun, turning it into exquisite jewelry and tableware and ornaments for the palace.

  To Meriones, Hokar’s gift seemed like magic.

  “The queen is very pleased with the work coming from the goldsmiths now,” Santhos reported to Meriones. “You may become a permanent fixture here.”

  In the Season of the Borning God Meriones invited Hokar to come to his house for dinner, to celebrate the arrival of spring.

  “Will I be able to get home afterward before dark?” the Thracian inquired.

  “Where do you live?”

  “In a little house at Arkhanes, in the shadow of the Hill of Tombs.”

  Meriones whistled. “It depends on what time you leave my house, then. That’s a goodly distance. We can loan you a lamp. Or you can spend the night with us. My wife will make up a pallet.”

  As they talked, the two men were standing side by side in one of the gardens, eating their bread and cheese and watching a pretty girl play with a chained monkey. “Do you have a nice place?” Hokar asked.

  Meriones beamed. “I think so. It was a great piece of luck, getting it. For some reason the old Minos—the one before this, that is—took a fancy to my music toward the end of his reign. He had grown quiet, and I think he liked me for playing softly. He chose me alone to play for him on Last Day, so for a brief time I was very important at Labrys. My reward was enough to buy my house, and Tulipa married me.”

  “Tell me about Last Day, Meriones. What was that like? We have no such custom in Thrace.”

  “It’s the sight of a lifetime! The final day of the Nine Years’ King must be more spectacular than any that has gone before, to show our gratitude to him for a prosperous reign. The Bull Dances are better than ever. Outstanding teams of Bull Leapers compete with each other for the honor of performing on Last Day, and the bull who proves to be bravest and most agile in the Bull Dance is sacrificed to Poseidon at the end of the day.”

  “You always offer a bull to Poseidon?”

  “We make many offerings to the sea god, but it is the gift of the mightiest creature on earth that pleases him most and keeps him from shaking the land.”

  Hokar nodded. “I’ve heard that Poseidon Ennosigaion ripples Crete from time to time, though I’ve yet to experience a bad earthquake here.”

  “Ah well, they do happen,” Meriones admitted. “But we build to allow for them, and we do those things that keep us in good favor with the gods. And with a joyous spirit!” he added quickly. “That is the Cretan way—with a joyous spirit!”

  “Tell me about the sacrifice. Would it make a good scene to depict on a gold bowl?”

  Meriones hesitated. “I don’t like to talk about sacrifices, really. I never enjoy seeing blood spilled. But if you want the details … the priest of the Double Ax, the two-faced ax that faces both toward this world and the netherworld, sacrificed a huge pied bull in the Central Court, and its head was brought to this very chamber, to have the horns gilded.”

  “Was the old Minos sacrificed too?”

  Merioned recoiled. “Of course not! What a ghastly idea!”

  “I just wondered. It is the custom in some lands, sacrificing the king at the end of his reign. It’s supposed to restore fertility to the soil.”

  Meriones was quite pale. “How grim.” He swallowed, hard. “No, we don’t practice human sacrifice on Crete. It is unbearable to imagine.”

  “Yet the sign of the Double Ax is everywhere in this place,” Hokar pointed out. “It must have some significance beyond the killing of bulls.”

  “Ah, well, er … I suppose it is a symbol from the olden times. Long ago … but surely not now …”

  “This is a huge place. There could be rites carried out in Labrys that you would know nothing about, Meriones.”

  “Oh, I hardly think so, not the way people love to talk. You are very bloodthirsty, Hokar.”

  “I’m not, I’m realistic. We Thracians are earthy people, that’s all. But if this bothers you, tell me instead about what happened to the old Minos.”

  “Ah, yes.” Meriones looked relieved. “I stayed with him until the end, playing the music he liked. Then the priestesses took him to the Chamber of Robes and removed all his finery, sending him out naked to his women. How they sobbed, his queen and concubines! But that was just part of the ritual, there was nothing to be sad about, really. They wrapped him in a simple robe and led him away. I stopped playing just as the priest brought forward the new Minos, a young man at the peak of his strength, naked, freshly bathed, and took him into the Chamber of Robes. There he was dressed in the royal clothes, still warm from his predecessor. That’s important, the warm part,” he added.

  “And the former king?”

  “I saw them bringing a covered sedan chair from the Zeus Gate to take him away. I believe he was taken to a distant palace such as Phaistos to live out his life in luxury, for he had been a good king and we prospered during his reign.”

  “But do you know for certain if he’s still alive? Has he ever been seen since?”

  “Oh no. At the end of his nine years a Minos must disappear from the sight of his people forever.”

  “I see.” Hokar nodded. His eyes were on the omnipresent sign of the Double Axes, depicted over the nearest doorway.

  8

  On a languid blue evening when the rusty voices of the gulls had ceased and bronze lamps of welcome burned in residential windows, Hokar dined with Meriones. At the conclusion of the meal he wiped the crumbs from his beard and belched appreciatively.

  Tulipa sniffed. The man was crude. His hairy face offended her. Men should be clean-shaven and polish their nails. But at least he had brought her a present. For the sake of the silver bracelet he had given her, she would try to overlook his rough edges.

  Now the two men lolled at their ease beside the table in the courtyard, watching idly as Tulipa cleared away and brought a fresh pitcher of wine.

  “Your wife is a good cook,” Hokar remarked when she had gone back into the house. “I never had birds stuffed with barley before, or those little shellfish.”

  “And raisins soaked in fruit juice,” Meriones said. “They were especially good. Did you like them?”

  “Mmmmm. Does she always cook like this?”

  “Always,” Meriones was proud to say. There was no faulting Tulipa’s cooking, even if she hated domestic duties otherwise. “Have you never married, Hokar?”

  “Never. Though at a time like this, I can see some of its advantages. But I’ve always been devoted to my work. That takes my energy, I have no time left over fo
r women. My art is my life. My only passion.”

  “Ah now. Ah now.” Meriones smiled a sly smile and waggled a forefinger in front of Hokar’s eyes. “That isn’t true. I’ve seen how you look at the girls in the palace, particularly those young ones, the new Bull Leapers.”

  “Any man would look at them, but looking is all I want to do. Can you imagine trying to catch hold of one? They are all muscle, those girls. And they have hardly any breasts. They look like the boys.”

  “They have to be slim and strong. It’s a very hard thing to do, the Bull Dance, and demands the greatest athleticism. Bull Leapers are recruited from every land, you know. It is a high honor to appear in the Bull Court.”

  “Recruited? Kidnapped, you mean. In Thrace we heard of young people who were seized and taken aboard Cretan ships and never heard of again. Rumor was, they disappeared into the bowels of Labrys.”

  “You make it sound as if something awful happened to them,” Meriones protested. “But they were taught a high art instead. Dancing with the bulls, leaping over their horns, somersaulting in teams through the air while a bull charges beneath you … it is not only beautiful to watch but it tests the courage of both human and bull. The best Bull Leapers become famous.”

  “If they live long enough,” Hokar commented. “What about the ones who are killed learning this ‘art’?”

  “Killed?” Meriones raised his eyebrows. “I’ve heard of no one being killed.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t,” said Hokar. “I suspect it’s kept very quiet. Like the old Minos.”

  A shiver ran down Meriones’ spine. “You’re just saying that.”

  Hokar relented. “I enjoy teasing you,” he said. “I mean no harm by it, forget I said anything.”

  The rest of the evening went well. At one stage, Meriones went next door to bring Phrixus over to meet the goldsmith. “He’s very important at Labrys, you know,” the musician said under his breath to his neighbor.