Knossos

by Laura Gill

  His second son took his instructions very seriously, although his mother did not like him going so close to boarding. “Send one of your men to fetch Abbek if he’s sleeping late,” Fidra said.

  “It’ll be all right,” Knos said. “Abbek’s not asleep, but fetching something important. Ah, look, there’s Iroas.”

  Iroas looked taller than he was, with his high headdress of black goat’s horns. Knos always wondered how he and Dravan—and now Yikadi—balanced under the weight of their ceremonial horns. Iroas carried a libation vessel in his hands, and his black goat-hair robe had a glossy sheen in the early morning light. Knos went to meet him.

  “May the manifold blessings of Marynos and Potidnu accompany you, Knos.” Iroas handed him the vessel, which was filled with strong pomegranate wine. Knos passed the vessel to Fidra in order to embrace the chieftain of the Goat Clan and exchange fraternal kisses upon the cheek. “Alas!” Iroas groaned. “I’d have gone with you were I ten years younger.”

  “It’s not too late, you know.” Good leaders were always welcome. Knos knew not to squander the opportunity. “I can make room for you.”

  Iroas shook his head. “No, no. I’m not a sailor. Besides, I suspect my clan is going to need me now more than ever. Shobai and his cronies will try to grab whatever you leave behind. The Goat Clan will do what it can for the Bull Clan.”

  Knos grasped his arm in friendship. “I will be returning next year or the year after for more settlers and breeding stock. You can change your mind then.”

  “I’ll wait for your return.”

  Menuash joined them at the sea’s foaming edge to pour out the libation to Marynos. The pomegranate wine stained the foam blood-red—red to sate the god’s bloodlust. Knos offered a vessel of thick honey, dribbling it into the crimson-stained water to sweeten the god’s temper. All these ceremonial measures, these ritualistic farewells, were essential to enliven the people’s spirits and gain divine favor, nevertheless they irked Knos. The hours spent in ritual might have been better passed in beating a course down the Rhodian coast.

  His mind inevitably strayed elsewhere, a lapse for which he prayed Marynos did not chastise him, and he spared a glance toward the heights. Dravan and the other Bull Clan elders stood their ground; they did not sanction the voyage or the division of the clan, and would offer no blessings. All to Dravan’s loss—it made him look miserly before the people. Well, after today he would have far more serious matters to worry about.

  Young Knos presently returned, much to his mother’s relief, and with good tidings. “Cousin Abbek is coming.” The boy’s dark brows furrowed. “But I don’t understand what he’s doing. Shouldn’t he be here already?”

  Knos slapped the boy’s shoulder and, before Fidra could voice a query, said, “He’ll be here shortly, but in the meantime it’s time for you and your mother to go aboard.”

  With Astaryas at the oars and Hariana with their youngest boy and two girls aboard Marynos, Knos had assigned Fidra and his second son and other children to Dolphin in the event that if—gods forbid—one vessel was lost, his progeny would endure. However, he gave his first wife a choice, whether she wanted to accompany Astaryas or travel with him. Urope made her decision without reservations. “Astaryas doesn’t need his mother hovering over his shoulder fussing over his aching back and blistered hands.”

  Just as Fidra and young Knos boarded Dolphin, a commotion from the heights seized his attention.

  The crowd turned en masse, hastily clearing a path for the quartet of men hauling a gagged, struggling man down to the beach. Knos glanced once over his shoulder, signaling to his crewmen to make certain that none of the passengers disembarked, and then strode forward to meet his cousin’s party.

  He shoved aside a moment’s uncertainty about disrupting the current benevolent mood and starting the voyage on a potentially ill omen, and seized Gamon by the hair. “Stand back!” he shouted at the man’s kinsmen, who had followed, hurling abuse at Abbek. “This man is guilty of murder!”

  Gamon struggled even harder, frantically shook his head no, and tried to utter a denial through his gag.

  Gamon’s older brother stepped forward. “We don’t know anything about murder.” Tiras was a big, burly man accustomed to throwing his weight around. “You let him go right now.”

  Knos heard the implied or else. “I don’t think so.”

  Tiras started to say something, to edge forward in an obvious attempt to intimidate the shorter Knos, when a man’s shout from the heights announced the procession of clan elders coming down the path. The crowd was pointing, muttering. Knos felt their collective unease.

  And heard it in Dravan’s aggravated query. “What is the meaning of this disturbance, Captain Knos?”

  Dravan kept his voice low, clearly hoping to diffuse the situation, yet Knos did the exact opposite, speaking loudly so that everyone could hear. “This man—” He jabbed a finger at the kneeling Gamon. “This man set the fire that killed Pashki, an oarsman aboard Dolphin, his mother, and his three young children. This man is a murderer.”

  The furrows deepened on Dravan’s face, and his eyes narrowed. “That’s impossible. Gamon is a herdsman of the Bull Clan, and would never attack someone from his own clan.”

  “That’s right!” Tiras parroted.

  Knos ignored him, giving Gamon a brutal shove. “We know you and another man from the Dolphin Clan were paid to burn my brother Rauda’s house, but you bungled the task by accidentally torching Pashki’s house. We know the payment of seven ewes you received was revoked the very next day, and by whom.” Knos avoided acknowledging Shobai, who stood among the other Dolphin elders; his business with that clan was finished.

  Dravan answered quickly—too quickly, “This is utter nonsense!” Knos noticed how he raised his voice—and noticed, too, the little quaver of panic he was trying to conceal.

  “Don’t you want to hear more?” Knos appealed to the other Bull Clan elders milling about. “There’s a murderer in your midst. And you?” He addressed the members of the Bull Clan, those staying behind, on the heights. “Don’t you want to know? The victims were all Bull Clan. Let’s have this out now, right here, before another house burns! Do you want your families to suffer the horrible death Pashki and his family suffered? Do you want a murderer of your clansmen to go unpunished? Pashki was a good man, a fine sailor.” Knos felt the crowd’s shifting mood. They were eager to know more, now that they understood what was going on. A few shouted out encouragement.

  “Tell us, Knos!”

  “Give us the murderers!”

  He wound them up just a bit further, because gods knew what their reaction would be when he named their own clan chieftain. “You all knew Pashki. You knew his aged mother and his young children. I was there when Pashki took his last breath. I swore a sacred oath on his ghost to see those deaths avenged.” He thumped his chest. “And as Potidnu and the Great Goddess are my witnesses, even though I’m about to leave, I fulfill my oaths!”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “You tell them!”

  Dravan was horrified. Shobai, now that Knos looked at him, was growing uneasy.

  Tiras advanced a threatening half-step. “Shut your lying mouth.”

  Abbek and the sailors immediately closed ranks behind Knos, who calmly inquired, “Are you going to make me?” A tense half-second passed in which nothing happened. “I didn’t think so. But don’t rely solely on my word.” He nudged his prisoner. “Tell them, Gamon. Don’t suffer the guilt alone. Tell them who gave you seven ewes to burn Rauda’s house, and then took them away one day after the fires.” Knos wrenched his gag away to let him speak. “Go ahead, man. He’s standing right before you.”

  Dravan tried to cover his mounting fear with a harsh little laugh. “This is absurd!”

  Iroas glared him down. “Be quiet,” he said coldly. “Someone is murdering by fire and night. Someone’s blood-guilt pollutes the village. The stain must be removed, and the sin expiated, before we all suff
er.”

  Gamon sputtered after the harshness of the gag. “It wasn’t me alone—”

  “Shut up!” Tiras hissed.

  Abbek seized a spear from one of the sailors and aimed it at the man’s chest. “That’s enough from you.”

  Ash-white, Gamon trembled visibly as his admission of guilt spilled forth. “It was Orzu of the Dolphin Clan that helped me—and it was him.” Were his hands free, Gamon would have pointed straight at Dravan. “He said it had to be done, to preserve the clan. He gave me Potidnu’s own blessing!” Groaning, he bent double and buried his face in the sand. “Don’t kill me, oh gods, don’t kill me. He said it was all right, he said I had the god’s blessing...”

  Everyone heard his blubbering confession. A cacophony of shouts rang out from the heights. Derision mingled with anger and disbelief. Aboard the ships, the passengers grew agitated. Knos turned to reassure them before chaos ensued. “Hold! Justice will be done—but I swear to you now upon the horns of the Mighty Bull that neither you nor I will shed blood this day. We will not pollute ourselves in going forth from this shore. It is for the Bull Clan that remains to pass judgment. Trust that they will act accordingly.”

  So saying, he addressed the elders and the people once more, “The ghosts of Pashki and his family cry out for retribution. They will remain with you until you appease them—and I suggest you do it before the gods blight your crops and your hearths.”

  Now Shobai spoke, “Orzu is a herdsman. He would never assist in such an absurd—”

  “That’s your business, not mine.” Knos relished the chance to bull over him exactly as the man had done to him three months ago. “Had you been reasonable, it never would have come to this.” He nudged the weeping man with his foot. “Gamon, your clan will deal with you. Dravan—” The clan chieftain turned his face aside in a defiant refusal to acknowledge him. “You have much to answer for, but you’ll be answering to them.” He encompassed both crowd and waiting elders with a generous sweep of his arm.

  It was done. Knos faced the sea and, cupping both hands around his mouth, sounded the traditional sea call, “Men of Dolphin, to your ship!” How good it felt to shout out that command after so many troubled weeks on land!

  Echoing him was a second call, Menuash commanding his crew, “Men of Marynos, to your ship!”

  Though the crews hastened to the ships, they did not board. The ramps were swept clear of dirt and drawn up, and the ropes thrown down from the decks. Knos boarded to direct the crews and calm the passengers, most of whom had never experienced firsthand the hauling of a ship into the waves. “We have a fine wind this morning,” he announced. “Now brace yourselves as we go into the water. This ship hasn’t moved in a while, and it’s always hardest when a ship takes to the water again after a long absence.”

  Days before, the crews had cleared the sand and other obstructions to form a gentle grade down which the ships could more smoothly enter the water, yet even so, once the wooden chocks were removed, it took every able-bodied oarsman and three dozen of the stronger male passengers hauling on the ropes to move the vessels. Knos felt the familiar shudder of the hull underneath him, heard the grunts of the men, the crunch of pulverized sand and gravel, the creak of weathered wood giving and flexing, and then, finally, the small splash as Dolphin slid into the ocean. He watched the crewmen of Marynos doing likewise, wading out with the ropes, pulling the vessel to deeper water. Marynos rode lower in the water than Knos would have liked, and Dolphin, too, felt heavy, but not alarmingly so. He breathed a profound sigh of relief. His and Menuash’s calculations had been correct.

  “Praise Marynos!” he shouted over the side. The call was taken up by the passengers, most of whom were ignorant of the fact that it was not only a gesture of thanks to the god of the sea for receiving the ships, but a signal to the men to come aboard.

  The sailors echoed the chant as they clambered up the ropes, assisted the passengers who had helped them, and assumed their places at the benches. Thirty oars were unlocked from their pins and lowered into the water. Once the ships were away from the harbor, they could unfurl the sail and make good time down the coast. Knos glanced over at Marynos. Menuash had his oarsmen edging the vessel away from Dolphin in order to put necessary room between them. “By the god’s grace,” Knos shouted, “take us out!”

  “Take us out!” Menuash echoed. “Heave to!”

  The helmsman started the drumbeat, slow and steady, the ship’s own reassuring heartbeat. That sound and the call to oars released a flood of well-wishers onto the beach. Waving, running into the surf as far as they dared, they bade farewell. Knos allowed his passengers to stand and wave back, because he knew he could not have contained them, yet nevertheless urged them not to move about too much while the oarsmen were at work.

  Knos’s gaze ventured to the knot of elders surrounding the guilty Dravan and Gamon. Someone had taken Tiras into custody; he struggled as he was forced to his knees. Iroas was gesticulating, exchanging heated words with Dravan, whose kinsmen had since put noticeable distance between themselves and their clan chieftain. Knos could not hear what they were saying above the beat of the drum, the splashing of the oars, and the shouts of the people.

  “Looks like someone will be dead before the day is out.” Urope stood at his shoulder. She wore her shawl over her head to cover her hair. He had not heard her approach, but acknowledged her comment with a grunt. “What about the second man?” she asked. “If he’s Dolphin Clan, Shobai won’t punish him.”

  Knos did not look at her, but at the receding shoreline where the figures were blurring from view. Even the whitewashed houses of the village were growing hazy, indistinct. “Who says he hasn’t already been punished?” A pause for effect. “Has anyone seen him this morning?”

  There was a moment’s silence between them. “You were gone a long time last night.” But Urope did not sound particularly alarmed or concerned, and Knos volunteered no further information. Those matters were behind them now—quite literally so as Dolphin rounded the headland ahead of Marynos. The village and its people vanished from view.

  *~*~*~*

  Good fortune followed them all the way to the last headland of Kasos. They skirted the coastlines, beaching at night where Knos and Menuash knew there were freshwater springs, and where the passengers could stretch their legs and take their rations beside warm bonfires.

  The expedition was progressing well, under the circumstances. Seasickness plagued many of the passengers. People heaved over the side and voided their bowels into wooden buckets. The children recovered soonest, quickly adjusting to life at sea. For them, it was an adventure. They tended the animals, changing the fouled straw at night. And whenever the oarsmen had a break under the billowing sail, they let the children come to the benches and watch the coastline. They delighted to see the dolphins, those servants of Marynos heralding good luck.

  Knos heard good reports about Astaryas, and Menuash assessed that the boy had the makings of a superb seaman. “He does what he’s told, and bears his burdens without complaint. He hasn’t even been seasick.” Chuckling, the young captain nodded toward the ships, darker shadows hulked against the growing night, beached above the high tidemark. Tomorrow morning, they would leave the protection of the coast and strike out across open water. “That’s a far sight better than my first time at sea!”

  By night, however, Astaryas did not come to his father’s bonfire to pay his respects, which irked his mother and captain far more than his father. Astaryas stood upon the threshold of manhood. Sooner or later, he would outgrow his adolescent peevishness and come around. So as long as he did not outright disrespect his elders, Knos was content to leave him alone, secure in the knowledge that his fellow oarsmen and captain were excellent mentors.

  The island of Kasos had just vanished over the horizon when ominously dark clouds gathered. The wind, blowing as it had from the northeast, suddenly acquired a bite, turning cold, whipping the waves into a restless froth.

  Sca
nning the horizon, Knos estimated that they had a half-hour before the storm hit—a half-hour in which to decide how they had offended Marynos and how best to regain his favor.

  Ordinarily, the sailors would have thrown a goat overboard to ease the storm’s fury—there was no preventing its coming once the wind howled and seas started churning—but every animal on this voyage was precious. Knos chewed his lower lip while debating the matter. With wild goats available in the new land surely the expedition could spare one.

  He picked his way along Dolphin’s deck, ignoring frantic queries from the passengers, until he found Yikadi hunkered with his wife by the stern. “Don your headdress,” he told the priest. “We’re giving a goat to Marynos.”

  The child Knos took the goat from whimpered and had to be shushed by his mother. The blood sacrifice was quick and clean, a good omen, and the goat’s carcass struck the water with very little splash, a sure sign that Marynos would devour the offering. Yikadi performed the rituals well, wielding the obsidian knife as Hariana’s father had instructed, and his singing afterward calmed the passengers.

  “Marynos, great wave-gatherer, here art thine own faithful,

  Who hath made such offerings to thee.

  Be thou gentle, be thou merciful.”

  As the storm clouds neared, shadowing the sun, and bringing rain. The sailors’ women lent their strength to those who had almost no experience and very little knowledge of the sea. Knos was counting on everybody to keep their heads while weathering the squall.

  He took practical measures, recruiting Abbek and two other, surefooted men to tether the cattle to the deck, and run sturdy lines along the length of the ship for the passengers to secure themselves.