Knossos

by Laura Gill

  He worked a little longer after Pu-abi withdrew, until, finally, he laid down the reed stylus and closed his strained eyes to the flickering lamplight. While he relished the familiar, enervating thrill he always experienced when embarking upon a new project, he nevertheless despised what he was doing. Compromising his principles, yielding to Pasiphae’s demands, turning his back on his son, even though a small but persistent voice in his head argued that Pasiphae might relent and return Ikaros to him now that he was doing her bidding.

  Doing her bidding. How he hated the sound of that! He rubbed his face vigorously. Architects took their work to bed with them where other men took their wives. That was no comfort.

  *~*~*~*

  “High Priestess Pasiphae sends you this gift.” The official extended the object in his pudgy hand. “Master Architect Daidalos requires his own seal to requisition workers and materials.”

  The lump of semiprecious agate Daidalos took from the official was not the Akkadian rolling cylinder seal he was familiar with, but bell-shaped, its flat surface engraved with a circular maze. A leather cord ran through a hole in the top, enabling the user to wear it as a pendant or around his wrist. “You’re certain?” Only royalty, the nobility and priests owned seals. Of course, there were exceptions in wealthy merchants or famous craftsmen, but such men—and occasionally women—lived like nobles themselves.

  “Of course!” the plump man insisted. “And I am your second gift. You must have a personal scribe to handle your affairs, and I, being the very best in Knossos, am that man.” He bowed with a flourish. “Master Scribe Kurra, at your service.”

  Kurra’s eyes, set too close together, reminded Daidalos of two obsidian beads pressed into a ball of clay. He was missing a front tooth; the rest were yellow. “Have no worries,” the scribe babbled on. “I will manage all your expenditures and allowances. You are entitled to...” Kurra consulted the tablet that he pulled from his fringed outer garment. “Ah, yes. You are entitled to eleven yards of tenth grade wool and seven yards of eleventh grade linen a year, seven liters of first-press olive oil a month, ten amphorae of wine of both red and pale quality per month, three rounds of goat’s cheese—”

  “Later.” Daidalos knew what to do with the seal stone, but not with such an excessive amount of goods; he had never owned so much in his life.

  Kurra performed another obsequious bow. “Forgive me, Master Daidalos, but High Priest Yishharu instructed me to elaborate on your income before anything else, and to inform you that your monthly allotment will shortly be transferred to your personal stores.” His wheedling tone and exaggerated gestures suggested untrustworthiness. “You are also entitled to take on additional servants and refurbish this house in whatever manner you wish.” He cast a critical look around.

  “I don’t want any more servants,” Daidalos said quickly. “As for the house...” He indicated the space around him. The furnishings were old, the decorations fading. He hardly noticed. “It’s more than I need.”

  “Is there anything else you require?” Kurra gave him an expectant look. “I am entirely at your service.”

  Yes. Daidalos wanted to see his son, yet he held his tongue against making that demand. “I need more laborers.” If the seal and scribe’s presence granted him the official right to requisition material, then he might as well put them to use. “I have sixteen workers and twenty masons clearing rubble. It’s not enough. Go to Overseer of the Laborers Diwinaso and authorize him to find me twenty more men with strong backs.” As the man started to bow, Daidalos stopped him. He had suddenly remembered something else he needed. “You know cuneiform?”

  “But of course I do, Master Daidalos!” Kurra exclaimed. “I can read and write in Akkadian, Egyptian and Kaphti, whatever you wish.”

  “Submit your reports to me in Akkadian.” Daidalos wished he could have read the Kaphti script fluently. That way, he could have made doubly certain that the scribe was not cheating him, because everything about Kurra bellowed a warning that he was capable of just that.

  Kurra immediately claimed a downstairs cubicle for his office. He also showed an interest in Pu-abi which she did not reciprocate. Daidalos intervened before he could thrust a hand up the woman’s skirt. “Scribe,” he warned sternly, “you may not harass this servant woman.” Pu-abi threw him a grateful look.

  “Harass?” Kurra fluttered a ring-laden hand over his heart. His plucked eyebrows, which were too small for his fleshy face, shot up. “Why should I have to harass anybody? Ladies find me irresistible.” Pu-abi rolled her eyes.

  Daidalos strode across to him and grasped his upper arm. “Here, you observe my rules. Unless you intend to pay her family the fine and marry her, you will not harass Pu-abi. Understood?”

  Kurra’s treble chins jiggled as he nodded frantically. “Yes, of course,” he stammered. “Everything will be according to your wishes, Master Daidalos.”

  “Make sure you remember that.” Daidalos released him. “Now find me the laborers I want.”

  Kurra later returned with a wax tablet inscribed in Akkadian and Kaphti authorizing Diwinaso to hire twenty additional day laborers. Once the scribe left, Daidalos went out to consult Balashu. Mesehti and the sentries let him move back and forth without disruption, except for those occasions when Daidalos wanted to leave the hill to inspect the crumbling terraces. Then one or all fell in behind him, a silent but ominous presence, reminding that he was still a prisoner.

  He found Balashu helping shift rubble from what would be the central courtyard. “Can you recommend an industrious, honest scribe?” What Daidalos needed was an assistant answerable solely to him, someone to monitor Kurra and make certain he was not abusing his station.

  Balashu wiped the back of his sweaty neck. The afternoon was hot and bright. “I’ve a neighbor with a son who just finished scribal school. He’s young, barely seventeen, but he works hard.”

  “Ask if he wants a job and if he says yes, bring him to the house.” Daidalos let his gaze roam around the hill. “Where do the sanctuary and the high priestess’s house obtain their water?” The river was almost certainly a source, though he had yet to see anyone but Pasiphae’s laundresses make use of it. “Where are the wells?”

  “There are only a few on the hill,” Balashu explained. “The light-wells in the high priestess’s house funnel rainwater into ducts that spill into catchment basins. I wouldn’t know personally, because I’ve never been inside, but that’s how all these other mansions on the hill were laid out.” He indicated the demolished houses with a sweep of his hand. “You should consult one of the masons who specialize in water works.”

  Daidalos took the names of several such craftsmen before continuing on his rounds inspecting the progress of the work.

  That evening, he interviewed Balashu’s neighbor’s son, the newly graduated scribe. Isiratos’s long face was cratered with acne, and he had sad brown eyes, but he quickly comprehended what Daidalos wanted. Once he ascertained that the young man was suitable, Daidalos made him swear a dreadful oath to keep his master’s secrets. Daidalos himself had often sworn upon demons or the entrails of his aged parents, wife and son when accepting employment in Akkad. Kaphti customs were no different, only this time he was the one administering the oath and directing the oath-taker to kiss his seal. He liked the rush of omnipotence the ceremony gave him.

  As soon as Isiratos left, Pu-abi claimed Daidalos’s attention. She was aflutter with excitement as she took his hand and led him downstairs into the mansion’s storerooms, a gloomy, yeasty-smelling place he had explored only once. Then, it had been empty. By lamplight, he now counted four pithoi casting their tall shadows against the floor where the kaselles, or sunken repositories, held quantities of saffron, alabaster and gold that he could either trade or keep. Amphorae of wine were stacked among the pithoi, and the pithoi themselves contained oil and grain, vegetables and dried fish.

  Pu-abi unrolled a bolt of undyed wool and, pointing to his chest with an enthusiastic smile, indicate
d that she wanted to make him new clothes.

  Daidalos did not know what to say. The last woman who had made clothes for him had been his wife. The newest of his garments was a threadbare brown tunic he had bought in Cyprus; he did not count the finery the high priestess had lent and left with him. “You don’t have to do this,” he answered.

  Pouting, she caressed the wool, then pointed to his collar where the tunic had started fraying. Daidalos was flabbergasted. After all his brusqueness with her, she still wanted to do this? “It’s not necessary,” he said, “but if you’re truly set on it, then I suppose I could use another tunic. Just make it plain. Any decoration will end up being rumpled and covered in dust.”

  As he said all this, he surveyed the oatmeal-colored dress that was her everyday wear, then the woolen bolt. “I don’t know anything about cloth,” he said, “but it looks like there’s enough for us both. If you want another dress or a cloak, Pu-abi, you can make yourself something.”

  Pu-abi’s dark eyes sparkled. Shyly, she ventured closer, stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

  Daidalos patted her cheek. “Ah, now what was that for? I haven’t been so kind as to deserve that.”

  Her gestures told a different story: he was a decent man, and had interceded for her against the lascivious scribe, and now she was showing her gratitude. Daidalos had known she was relieved, but had not thought she might feel something beyond that. Suddenly he was embarrassed, as flustered as a youth. “Ah, that’s all right,” he mumbled awkwardly, glancing away. “Let’s, uh, go upstairs now. It’s dark and musty down here, and, uh, there are things I must do.”

  Daidalos took the lamp. Pu-abi carried the bolt with a lightness in her step.

  *~*~*~*

  The young maidservant bowed. “High Priestess Pasiphae requests your immediate presence.”

  Daidalos managed to conceal his visceral disgust. What did that infernal woman want with him? He had made a point of avoiding Pasiphae when she left her mansion to perform her daily devotions in the early morning and late afternoon. Seeing her invariably reminded him of Ikaros, of her deception, the unforgivable violation of guest-right, and then, as always, rage churned in his belly. “Tell her I’m busy.”

  The maid looked genuinely apologetic—or afraid that his refusal would land her in trouble. “She insists.”

  Daidalos straightened his tunic, told the workers he would return and then followed the maidservant to the sanctuary where Pasiphae awaited him under the columned portico. Her short-sleeved saffron-colored bodice with its plunging neckline revealed more of her cleavage than he cared to see, and she exuded a fragrance of lilies that made his nose twitch. “You wanted to see me?” he asked bluntly.

  “Master Daidalos!” she exclaimed, as though they were two friends meeting unexpectedly. “How pleasant it is to see you!” She fluttered her long eyelashes. “How wonderful that you have finally come around and seen reason. We wish to reward your obedience.”

  Obedience. Daidalos’s stomach turned at the sound of that. He wanted nothing more than to strike that smug smile from her face. But what did she mean by a reward? Was she going to return Ikaros to him? His son was the only reward he sought. “In what way?” he inquired.

  Pasiphae’s cloying smile did not waver. “We are granting you a singular honor. Access to the sanctuary to make offerings on behalf of the temple project. An architect’s prayers carry much weight.”

  Was that all? Daidalos knotted his fingers together behind his back to keep from throttling her. He wanted his son, she knew that, and still she toyed with him. How much did she think he could stand? Casting his gaze to the ground, he did not thank her, did not acknowledge the so-called reward in any other manner.

  “Why are you not grateful?” she asked sharply after several moments. “Ah, there are other things you desire. I have not forgotten. Ikaros is doing well. You will see him soon enough.” His gut warned him not to believe her after all the lies she had told. “First, you must build something. I want a sanctuary there.” Pasiphae pointed east. “It should face the dawn. There should also be a shrine for Ashera’s sacred serpents where we can offer the goddess’s messengers milk and honey. Nearby should—”

  “You realize you’ve chosen the steepest part of the hill, don’t you?” Daidalos ignored Pasiphae’s withering glare. “The ground has to be prepared. Terraced. Reinforced with stone. Otherwise—whoosh!” He brushed his palms together to simulate a landslide. “There goes everything, right into the ravine.”

  Her mouth was drawn tight. “I am not interested in hearing your excuses. I expect results.”

  At that moment, Daidalos would have been more than happy to build her a shoddy sanctuary, then watch it collapse around all her. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it formed, though. His name would be forever attached to that disaster, something which he was not about to let happen. “You will have your sanctuary when the hill can support it, not a moment sooner.”

  Pasiphae’s nostrils flared as she retorted, “And you will have your son when you accomplish something, not a moment before.”

  *~*~*~*

  Within three weeks, the hill was cleared of rubble. Balashu’s masons set about rebuilding and reinforcing the terraces. The laborers began smashing old orthostates and mudbricks for material with which to level and resurface the hill, and to use as rubble fill for construction.

  With the ground largely clear, Daidalos was now able to calculate some exact measurements. A few hours pacing with stakes and string confirmed his earlier, rough estimation that the hill covered an area of six acres; he would not have to alter his preliminary sketches.

  A temple complex such as the one the high priestess wanted revolved around its central courtyard. Therefore, it would have to be the first space to be laid out and paved. Daidalos paced three hundred down the hill’s north-south axis, marking as he went, and then paced a hundred and fifty feet down the east-west axis.

  Balashu and Diwinaso jointed him under a tree for the midday meal. As they shared bread, cheese and wine from Daidalos’s stores, Balashu related the history of the hill as he understood it. “There were great mansions up here since before my grandfather’s time, and before that time there were houses. Knossos is very old. Dig under any house. There’s pieces of pottery and buried mud bricks and all sorts of other things, some very strange.” He shrugged.

  “That was the same in my grandfather’s village in Punt.” Diwinaso smiled, showing large, even white teeth. “When I first started working with him, digging foundations for mansions and other buildings, we would find such things. Signs of the ancestors, he called them.”

  Daidalos listened, signaling his agreement with a nod. No matter where he went, there was not a site that he had dug into that had not revealed signs of previous habitation. He anticipated encountering many such ruins when it came time to excavate the hill for the foundations.

  “What do you want to do about the ritual walkways around the Minos’s old house?” Diwinaso nodded toward Daidalos’s lodging. “You want my men to leave them or demolish them?”

  Daidalos had not given much attention to the paths crisscrossing the ground before the Minos’s former mansion, mostly because they were cracked and partially covered with debris. “What are they for?”

  “They lead from the house to the great sanctuary,” Balashu said. “Every nine years there’s a ritual of installment where the Minos makes a procession to the sanctuary to make offerings to the gods.”

  “And they’ve been neglected all this time.” It was a statement rather than a question. Daidalos suspected that Pasiphae wanted the walkway destroyed. “Leave them be. We’ll refurbish everything once the house is torn down.” He did not intend to occupy the Minos’s derelict mansion forever.

  Resuming his business after the meal, he encountered Isiratos, who had nothing of consequence to report. Kurra’s ruling vice appeared to be laziness, which came as no surprise. “He closes his eyes when he thinks no one is looking,” the y
oung scribe said. “And when he is not snoring, he is always eating pistachios.” Isiratos turned up his nose. “He litters the floor with the shells.”

  Daidalos would rather Kurra stuff his belly with pistachios than his pockets with gold. “Have you been monitoring the orders he’s been sending out?” Isiratos had not reported anything unusual regarding the Akkadian-Kaphti documents, but Daidalos wanted to make absolutely certain.

  “Exact copies,” Isiratos assured him. “He does not have the imagination to do otherwise.”

  When he went home, Pu-abi awaited him on the threshold. She wore a smile and an impatient air, and before Daidalos could ask what was amiss, she hustled him indoors and straight upstairs. Why she was so insistent? Had a snake slithered into the storeroom? She shook her head. Was there an intruder? Pu-abi indicated there was not. At that point, her eagerness to steer him to the bedchamber made him suspect that she wanted to lie with him. Gods, no. Pu-abi had shown herself to be a good-hearted, industrious woman who deserved a worthy man, but Daidalos knew that man could not be him. She was a freeborn woman, not a slave to be dallied with, and truth to tell, he had not looked with desire upon any woman in several years. Most of the attractive women he encountered were young enough to be his daughters, or whores whose garishness repelled him, and on those nights when he wondered about his impotence he was forced to admit that the cold that had crept into his bones had quashed the heat of his youthful passions.

  To his relief, once in his chamber Pu-abi did not loosen her gown, instead drawing his attention to an item laid out upon his fleeces. A brand-new tunic. Daidalos could feel the softness of the new wool against his callused fingertips, and could smell the indigo with which she had dyed it. Never mind that he had asked for something plain as the earth itself, he had never owned anything in such a rich blue. “It’s well-made.” He held it against his chest to measure the fit.