by Joan Grant
Then in ceremonial procession the high-priest left the presence of the god as he had come. And when we left the temple I was surprised to find that it was still two hours before noon; for it seemed that the shadows of evening would be lying across the land, so long had been this ceremony.
In the drowsy hours of early afternoon, when all the palace rested, Neyah and I talked long together of the morning’s ceremony. We were in the arbour of our private terrace; I was lying on blue cushions, idly watching the patterns of the leaves against the sky, and Neyah sat with his arms clasped round his knees, staring out towards the sea. Suddenly he broke in on my sleepy silence and said, “If understanding is the fruit of experience, I must be a man first born on Earth: for I can understand nothing of these people’s temples. I spent two hours this morning watching their high-priest walk his part in brilliant pageantry, while he mouthed ritual prayers, and not one word of wisdom fell upon my ears, not even the simplest laws of how mankind should live among each other. He must be fool or charlatan or both. By the way he tried to bargain with his god, he might have been a huckster in the market-place: trying to buy his compassion with promises of wine and sacrificial beasts, and to beguile him with dancing-girls as if he were a rich merchant ancient of loins. There is not one among them who is winged, who can fly beyond the small confines of Earth. Though none can see a greater part of godhead than can be encompassed by the age of their spirit, they should at least allow their gods as much of wisdom as they have themselves; yet, though the vainest noble would distrust a man who praised him to his face—for the net of flattery is coarsely meshed—they praise Zeus as if he could be swayed by flattery.”
I told Neyah that when I asked Kiodas if they had temple counsellors in Minoas, he had seemed surprised and had said that when his people had disputes they kept them until one of his overseers went to their village.
Then Neyah said, “Have you noticed that if one speaks of death these people are embarrassed? It is as if one had broken some rule of custom, which made them feel as I should if, when sitting in audience, I realized that I had forgotten to put on my beard. They seem not to fear death, yet they will not talk about it. Think of their courage in the bull court; they are careless of death for their companion, and when that boy was killed I noticed that not even the women turned their eyes away. No one is afraid to talk of what they know; so it must be that to them the face of death is veiled. What do they hope from death? A shadowy country where they can re-live their Earth, or oblivion in a pool of unending night?”
“They don’t even know that a priest must be one who can say, ‘I can tell you of the littleness of death, for to me its gateway has a long familiarity, and I can tell you how to live your lives, so that when once again you walk through her portals, you will rejoice at what you find therein’.”
Neyah pointed to five ships that were rounding the rocky headland to the west, and he said, “They pride themselves, and rightly, upon their fleet, and they would not take a blind pilot upon their deck and expect him to lead them to safe anchorage; nor would they take one who said to them, ‘I cannot tell you, of my own knowledge, where the rocks are hidden, but I believe this is the course on which you should set your oar.’ If such a person dared claim to be a pilot, they would throw him into the sea—and he would have richly earned a lengthy swim. Yet they allow the course of their lives to be set by men whose gateways are not open.
“Sekeeta, though Kiodas has no conception of what a priest really is, I think that while he was in Kam he saw how much our temples mean to the people, and how we are strong in our Gods. He has a deep respect for your wisdom, although he does not understand it, and if you asked him to let us send a priest to his country to go among the people and talk to them, I am sure he would agree to it, both from courtesy to us and because he values friendship with Kam.”
“Neyah, do you remember the dream I had long ago, when I visited this country in my sleep and saw the high-priest disguise himself as a swan and pleasure himself in the third sanctuary? Before I came here I knew that these temples were without light, and I hoped that we might be the spark that kindled it for them. I thought it might be that these people were old ones who were obscured, that their own knowledge was hidden from them because of some misusing of it in the past. Such people are like a heap of dry palm-wood, which a little flame can turn into a blaze. Now I know this hope was in vain; for I have been told, away from Earth, that the Minoans are not obscured, but are young. And you cannot light a beacon fire of young green wood.”
“Although they are not ready to be priests themselves, we could send a teacher to them, and if they listened to his wisdom, they would hand his words down from one generation to another.”
“Even if Ptah himself should come here and there were some who listened and revered his words, passed them on to all they met, wrote down his teacing and carved his laws in stone, in a hundred years the people would have forgotten the meaning of his words unless there were true priests to follow him. For the Teaching to be alive, wisdom must flow down to Earth through open gateways, or soon it will become dead as the arm cut from a sculptor, whose fingers lose their power as soon as the master’s life-blood reaches them no longer.”
“But even if their memory of true knowledge were fainter than it once had been, surely that would be better than to have nothing, nothing that is permanent, nothing that lasts through time?”
“Minoas would be the poorer for hearing half-remembered truth; for if there are a few grains of gold in a bowl of sand, here are few who seek the shining grains and many who say that all of it is worthless. In these temples they have men, not priests. What would it serve them if they spoke other words? What if our priests, when challenged how their knowledge came to them, no longer answered, ‘I have seen these things myself and know that they are true’, but instead should say, ‘Of course, I cannot know this for myself, but long ago a wise man said these things, for they are carved on a stele seven cubits high and scribed in an early papyrus roll.’ If any priest in Kam should answer thus, there is not one in the land so foolish to heed his words. There is much wisdom of the past inscribed, and it is well these records should be read, for though all true teachers throughout time have taught the same, there have been some who phrased truth well, so that their words awaken the hearts of those who hear them. This one truth has many degrees of brilliance: and from all who hold it, it shines, first as from a little lamp, which can but drive the shadows from a room, until, at last, it blazes like a sun, which can drive out the darkness from a world. The lamp of light can shine on Earth only when there are priests to tend it. And when the priests are gone, for a little time the wick glows, and then it is only an empty lamp, and though its alabaster may be richly carved, soon it becomes lifeless and without warmth.
“The time will come when these people will realise their hunger: then will their priests make praise and chant in vain, and none will watch this mockery of the Gods; and those who once looked on these ceremonies will find more wisdom in the market-place. Then will come whispers: round cooking fires, in vineyards, and in pastures, and on ships; whispers that say, ‘We are alone; we know not whither we go nor whence we came: we are afraid.’ And through time these wisps of words will grow, until they challenge the Gods, saying, ‘We demand thy wisdom for ourselves.’ And the Gods will send them children who are long in years and who can walk across the Causeway to the Gods. And the children will return and speak to these people in a clear voice; and in the strength of wise integrity they shall say: ‘This is the truth, for I am priest’.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Sorcerer
Not far from the palace there was a little valley, dark with trees; and in it was a ruined temple. None would go near this place after sunset or before the day was light; for they held that it was an abode of evil spirits, and that any who went there at the full moon would return with vacant eyes, so great was the horror that they would see. When I would have questioned Kiodas about it he was ill
at ease, and I saw it was a thing of which he feared to speak. And I wondered whether there were really some evil thing in that place, or whether it were a bodiless one who was imprisoned there by his own ignorance and needed succour.
So I decided to leave the palace quietly by night and find the secret of this ruined place. Ptah-kefer thought it was well that we should go there; and so together we left the palace in the moonlight, and we went up the valley in the heavy shadow of cedar trees.
The temple was a little sanctuary, with fallen pillars, and a tree was growing through the broken floor beside the crumbling statue of a god. It had the muffled smell of musty leaves and long decay. Sodden with despair, fear clung about it like a shroud of thick grey cobwebs, and I could understand the terror of them who came here.
Ptah-kefer signed to me to be still, and covering his eyes, he looked upon this place. And he said, “There is one here who died five hundred years ago. His name was Keiron-deides. He was born with some little knowledge, and if he had been patient he might have learnt something of seership. But he was greedy for knowledge and tried to force the gateways of others with the bar of filth. He knew that people who are in a weakened body, or who have a high fever, see things that are not for all men’s eyes. And he brought three women to this place, young girls of little will, and made them eat of loathsomeness: of still-born children and the excrement of cats, the eggs of snakes and live cockroaches in oil. And when their bodies revolted in a great sickness, again he made them eat; until their bodies were so weakened that they could not hold the spirit, and they saw beyond their flesh, and raved in horror at the things they saw. He that should have been a priest had become a sorcerer.
“And for many years he recorded their speech, until at last one of the girls rebelled against him and put a poisonous fungus in his food, and he died in a great agony.
“He is doing but one thing over and over again throughout the years: he eats of filth that he made others eat, and then he writhes in his death agony; and then again he stoops towards the fire and watches horror bubbling in the pot, yet cannot stay his hand, which puts it to his lips. He does not know he has been here five hundred years: for, caught in an eternal now, he knows only the present, and to him this endless horror is for ever fresh.”
Then Ptah-kefer told me to release him. And while he watched to see that all was well, I left my body, wrapped in its cloak upon the ground. Then I felt this clinging greyness close on me, and I drove it forth with brilliant yellow light. I knew that he whom I must release was at my feet, yet I could not see him clearly, but only as a cowering shape. And I commanded him, “You shall hear my words. Death shall be no longer in your nostrils; your tongue shall not know decay and your eyes shall no more see filth. For you shall sleep. And when you wake you shall be born again under the sun.”
Then at my feet I saw, not a man old in his sorcery, but a young man as he had been before he walked in slime. And he was like a young goatherd I had seen sleeping in the sun while his flocks grazed under the olive trees upon the mountainside.
Then I returned to my body. And Ptah-kefer cleansed this place with the waters of peace; so that the memory was cleansed from it, just as the life of Ptah cleanses a poisoned wound. And we left the valley a place of peace; and the moonlight shone upon it unobscured.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Festival of Poseidon
The day before we returned to Kam was the day of the Festival of Poseidon, when offerings are made to the Minoan god of the sea in supplication that he should send fair winds for their fleet and unleash his storms only when their ships were in safe anchorage.
Kiodas asked us to share in the festival and to wear Minoan dress. As Maata helped me to prepare for it, I knew that she wished that I was a child again and of an age when she could command my tunics. I curled my hair in Minoan fashion and held it in place with coral-headed pins. My flounced dress was sewn with little shells and knots of seed-pearls; the bodice was edged with clusters of coral beads and showed my breasts, which I had gilded in spite of Maata’s disapproval. And when she would have voiced her thoughts, I told her that it was better to be the child of courtesy than the slave of custom. “The laws of good and evil, Maata, are the same for all time and for all countries. But modesty and courtesy wear many guises. They are the products of their time and place, and their measure must be taken from one’s company. If here I were to play Pharaoh, it would be as foolish as if I wore the White Crown when swimming in the lake, or sat naked upon the throne of audience.
“It is difficult to drag a ship along a dry river-bed, but it will float easily upon water; and courtesy between people on Earth is like the water between the boat and the river-bed. It may not have the scarlet of courage or the brilliant yellow of wisdom, but it is like the soft green of the meadows, against which all other colours become more splendid. Courtesy can be as cool linen when we are tired, or as the glow of a brazier upon a cold night. It may not be that great wind of experience which drives our ship upon its journey, yet it can curve our sails when other wayfarers upon the river are becalmed.”
When I was ready I joined the others assembled on the terrace. Artemiodes was wearing pearls threaded in her hair, and Kiodas was crowned with coral, and I saw that in the clothes they had given us, Neyah and I were as royally dressed as they. The litters in which we were carried down the steep hillside were shaped like shells, and the litter-bearers wore masks painted like fish.
When I first saw the harboured fleet from high upon the mountainside, the ships with their sails of saffron, orange, and indigo, and the soft brown of new-cut cedarwood, looked like flower petals in a bowl of lapis lazuli.
The deck of the royal ship was banked with violets, whose sweetness mingled with the keen salt air. Green pennants streamed like seaweed from the masts, and the oars were striped in red and white. Kiodas took the steering-oar from his ship-master as we led the fleet out of the harbour. The wind was gay but gentle, and it fretted the ship with little laughing waves. Artemiodes told me that this showed Poseidon was in a gracious mood; the year before he had greeted them with storms, until they had to flee from his anger to harbourage.
I was never quite sure how much Artemiodes shared in the beliefs of her people. Did she really think the sea was a hungry god who could be propitiated by yearly gifts? Almost as though she heard my thoughts she answered them, “If Poseidon is feeling kindly towards us, he accepts our offerings; but if he rejects them, they float, and our people become most desolate: for many of them have someone they love who is a sailor or a fisherman and can be endangered by his wrath. Kiodas says that it is very harmful for the country to know when Poseidon is displeased, so now he has the royal tribute weighted so that it sinks whatever Poseidon’s whim. I was afraid that this might anger the god, but the high-priest told us that the omens were propitious; and certainly the storms don’t seem to have been any worse than usual, and the fleet has been more contented.”
We reached a headland where there was a race of waters that had drawn many ships upon the rocks, and Kiodas made ceremonial dedication to Poseidon and cast the first tribute into the sea. Then wreaths of flowers were thrown from all the other ships, and these offerings also were sucked down by the current amidst great rejoicing. When it was seen that the tribute was acceptable, Kiodas opened a wicker cage, and from it flew three white pigeons, which circled round the ships before homing to the island with their good tidings.
Then the fleet spread out into a long line, and at a signal from the royal ship they sped forward with a following wind, cleaving the water in their race for leadership. Far on our left a ship outwinged the line. With water spraying from her figure-head and her orange sail curved in an arc of speed, ahead of all she gained the harbour mouth. Her triumph was greeted with an echoing cheer, and Kiodas said that she had earned the greatest honour of the fleet: to wear on her prow the gold Minoan bull until at the next year’s festival she was challenged for the supremacy.
CHAPTER NINE
Homeward Voyage
Our sails were set upon our homeward voyage, and across the gently undulating sea I watched their mountains sinking in the west. That country, which long ago I had been to in my dreams, had beauty even in reality. But now this flowery interlude was past, and I must again take up the Crook and Flail.
Ptah-kefer and I were sitting together on the deck, watching the silver furrow our ship was ploughing through the smooth water. He was wrapped in his cloak, for wind is not warming to old blood. I knew he was in the mood when his thought turned easily to words. And I asked him whether he was sorry to leave Minoas, and what he thought of these people whose lives we had shared for two months. He pretended to speak seriously, but there was laughter in his eyes as he said, “I fear the high-priest of Minoas has little respect for my double feather, for he thinks me a prodigious liar. He is a man of such small experience that not only does he fail to understand the complexities of the lands beyond the Earth, but, I suspect, he doubts whether such places exist. He treated me with the confidence of two mountebanks who would share the secrets of each other’s tricks; and when he questioned me of how I deluded my people and I told him I tried to end their delusions and not create them, in spite of his politeness I knew that he thought my sincerity the deepest guile. He might have been a conjurer, who, having told another how he could make a live quail-chick seem to grow out of a man’s ear, is naturally indignant because his fellow will not tell him how he makes a figurine turn into a bunch of feathers and three pomegranates.