Knossos

by Laura Gill

  Through gestures, Pu-abi demonstrated how she had measured the tunic against the garment the high priestess’s servants had lent him for the feast. Then she pointed to his feet, gesturing emphatically that he should remove his sandals so she could measure each foot with a knotted string.

  Daidalos glanced down at his feet. “There’s nothing wrong with my sandals.” Nor did he like the feel of new shoes. They always ached and chafed, and hindered his mobility until he broke them in.

  Pu-abi’s insistence did not abate; with each refusal, he measured the deepening hurt in her eyes. He tried to explain, “You owe me nothing for my telling Kurra to leave you alone.” Yet she did not seem to hear him. Gods help her if she was infatuated with him. He could provide nothing that she could not find elsewhere, and better. He did not even possess the tongue to let her down while salving her pride; he had never been particularly adept at communicating with women.

  As she continued to gaze at him, he became flustered. “Pu-abi, you’re very kind, but I don’t need new sandals.” Neither did he really want them. His tongue felt thick and uncooperative. If she had been able to speak, the exchange might not have been so awkward. What else could he say? She so obviously wanted to look after him, and, he grudgingly admitted, her doing so gave him comfort and the semblance of family in his unusual circumstances. “Well, if you insist...”

  She relaxed, her eyes sparkling, and knelt down to take his measurements. He stammered something unintelligible, meant to be an expression of gratitude, then averted his eyes and left the room.

  *~*~*~*

  The morning was hot, even in the shade, but Daidalos greeted it as a godsend as he donned the new tunic and sandals Pu-abi had made for him. Not since before his wife’s death had he bothered so with his appearance, but he wanted to look his very best because today, on the occasion of the sacred Kaphti Bull Dance, he was going to see Ikaros for the first time in months.

  Except that the boy Yishharu escorted to his door looked nothing like Ikaros. Ikaros wore a scarlet tunic banded with yellow and blue embroidery. A necklace of brass lilies hung around his neck. Kohl smudged his eyes, and his skin smelled of costly unguent. Daidalos’s initial reaction was that Pasiphae had somehow cheated him, but then Ikaros called out to him with a familiar, unabashed joy, “Father!”

  Daidalos caught him in his arms. “You’ve grown so!”

  “I’m strong, too.” Ikaros flexed his right bicep. “Iapyx and I wrestle and box every day.”

  Yishharu explained, “Iapyx is a servant boy in my sister’s house. He is Ikaros’s companion.” For the occasion, he wore full regalia: fringed blue and saffron robes with elaborate gold and rock crystal ornaments. A silver labrys amulet hung on a chain around his neck. The priests from Daidalos’s home village had never dressed so well. “We regret that Ikaros must leave you at dusk, but the entire day is yours. Ekur will escort you.” Yishharu indicated a nearby guard before excusing himself. “Apologies, but my duties beckon. I must leave you now.”

  Daidalos felt his son tug his wrist. “He’s going to walk in the procession,” Ikaros announced.

  “So you’re excited about the Bull Dance?” Daidalos was more concerned about what Yishharu was molding his son into. Even though he wanted Ikaros to have the best of everything, rich clothes and perfumes would not serve him when the time came for him to resume his humble status as a builder’s son.

  “Oh yes!” Ikaros exclaimed.

  They headed east from the house toward the enclosure by the river. As they went, Daidalos pointed out the future courtyard and the site where he would build storerooms and workshops to facilitate the construction. “First we had to clear the hill,” he said. “That took many weeks. We’re now working to rebuild and shore up the terraces. There are many preparations that go into a project like this.”

  “I know, Father,” Ikaros answered soberly. “I’ve been watching you from the house. High Priestess Pasiphae says you’re wasting time, but I know you don’t do anything you don’t have to do. And I know that when it’s all done it’ll be the most wonderful thing you’ve ever built.”

  This was neither the time nor place to speak freely about Pasiphae. Switching to Akkadian, which he doubted Ekur could follow, Daidalos asked his son, “How can you know that when you’ve never seen anything else I’ve built? It was mostly the work of other architects.”

  Ikaros could not be dissuaded. “Yes, but now you’re in charge, and you’re better than them.”

  They descended the hill via an old cobbled walkway. The area around the enclosure thronged with scores of people from throughout the region. Although the Bull Dance was celebrated elsewhere on Kaphtor, Daidalos knew from his workers and others that the most splendid observances took place at Knossos. The press of people reminded him of the great religious festivals in Egypt and Akkad. “What do you do during the day? Have you been behaving?”

  “Yes, Father,” Ikaros groaned. “I have boring lessons every day, and prayers every morning and night.”

  Daidalos grasped his son’s arm so as not to lose him in the crowd. “I’d better not hear that your tutor has to beat you.”

  Once they made it unscathed through the bottleneck of the entrance, he noted how the Bull Dance enclosure encompassed an area broad enough to accommodate thousands of spectators as well as the arena itself. He gazed longingly toward the platform shaded by a striped, tasseled awning; that was reserved for the Minos, high priestess and other important citizens.

  No such comfort for him and his son. Ekur escorted them to an eastward-facing bench, then sat down between them and their neighbors. A second guard appeared to stand sentinel on their right. His name was Ubaras, and he gave them fresh figs, cheese and a jug of wine that had been cooled in the river. “Haven’t seen the Bull Dance before?” he inquired. “Oh, then you’re about to see something special. Poteidan will come down and enter the bull.”

  Still in Akkadian, Ikaros commented, “I can hardly wait. I saw a drawing where the dancers grasp the horns and use them to vault over the bull. But that’s not really possible, Father. Master Dhipatsu says bulls toss their heads when they’re agitated, which means the dancers would—”

  A triton sounded and then another, and a respectful hush descended on the enclosure. Daidalos and Ikaros followed the example of the seated spectators as they rose en masse to acknowledge the procession. The Minos walked ahead of the priests. He was an old man, diminished despite his rich garments and ornaments, and he hobbled on a stick where he should have been conveyed in a litter. Yishharu appeared with the priests of Poteidan. Pasiphae followed bearing up an ancient labrys. Her attendant priestesses were as magnificently dressed as she, with painted faces and tinkling brass bells affixed to their skirts that chimed as they walked.

  “Lady Pasiphae says the Minos forgets things and pisses in his bed,” Ikaros said in Akkadian.

  Rather, Minos Rasuros looked like a man stripped of power and purpose. Daidalos observed the bull priests in their cowhide aprons leading the procession of dancers. “You shouldn’t repeat the things she says,” he admonished. “Not everything that comes out of her mouth is trustworthy.”

  Yishharu remained standing when everyone else under the awning sat down. With his customary elegance, he dedicated the Bull Dance to Poteidan, Lord of the Heavens, Earth-Shaker, and Great Bull. “Let the god descend! Let his holy presence bless the people!” His voice carried far, and when he spoke he raised the labrys heavenward.

  “I know, Father.” Ikaros nudged his father’s arm. “I like the high priest, though. He’s nice to me.”

  Daidalos watched Yishharu take his place between Pasiphae and the Minos. Servants wafted the air around them with painted fans. “Remember your manners with him, but don’t trust him, either.”

  Ekur interjected with a meaningful cough. “You and the boy speak perfectly good Kaphti. Whatever you’ve got to say you can say in front of me in a tongue we can all understand.”

  “I speak Akkadian with my
son because that was his mother’s tongue,” Daidalos answered sharply. “Ikaros has been asking me to describe the Bull Dance as we used to celebrate it on Naxos. I’ve also been scolding him for wearing too much scent.” He did not have to feign his distaste when pulling a sour face. Whoever had anointed Ikaros must have spilled the entire jar of unguent over him.

  The first dancers, the young bull dancer priests in their ringlets and scarlet loincloths, came out to engage the bull. They tumbled and pirouetted with acrobatic grace. They enticed the bull into a run with red ribbons. And then they leapt, displaying astonishing control in somersaulting over the animal’s body. Daidalos watched open-mouthed. Sometimes the youths of Naxos baited bulls and vaulted them using long poles, but in his memory their sport seemed clumsy in comparison with what he saw before him.

  Ikaros cheered. “I wish I could do that,” he confessed. Of course he did. Daidalos himself had often daydreamed of performing heroic feats when he was his son’s age. “Iapyx says all the boys and girls here dance with the bull when they’re fourteen, but Asterios says I can’t.”

  “Who?”

  “The high priestess’s oldest son,” Ikaros said. “He’s mean. Pushes and shoves me around. He’s older, but I could beat him easily, if I were allowed to.” Daidalos did not doubt that. Circumstances had forced Ikaros to confront bullies in hostile Cyprus, and before that, in the squalid alleyways of Sippar.

  A pair of initiates came out to dance with the bull. Their routines were comparatively simple, touching the bull’s horn or, for the most daring, standing on his back. “You have guest-right,” Daidalos stated. “Asterios is not allowed to abuse you.”

  “I know, but...” Ikaros swallowed whatever else he had been about to say. Daidalos supposed that he must have questioned the validity of that guest-right many times since his confinement. “I wish I could stay and help. I’m old enough now.”

  “Yes, you are.” Daidalos took a swig of water from the jar. “What about your lessons?”

  Ikaros showed his disgust. “I hate lessons.”

  Daidalos handed him the jar. “They’re good for you.” Around them, the crowd cheered the initiates. The Minos stood to salute the dancers. “An architect has to know how to read, write and speak the language of whatever people he works for. He also has to know about building methods and materials. I’ll ask Yishharu about apprenticing you, but that’s no guarantee it’ll be allowed.”

  After the Bull Dance ended, Daidalos took his son home. Pu-abi had not yet returned from visiting her relatives in the town, but she had left food and drink. Daidalos invited the guards to come inside where it was cool because it was the hospitable thing to do on a festival day.

  “What do boys on Naxos do when they become men?” Ikaros asked. He and Daidalos were lying on pallets in a downstairs room where the light-well funneled cool air for sleeping, but neither one wanted to succumb to the afternoon sleep with so little time remaining. “What kind of rites are there?”

  “We didn’t celebrate with the Bull Dance, if that’s what you mean.” Daidalos delved among the memories of his youth. “There was a swimming trial and something to do with a boat—ah, yes, we had to ferry the goddess Pelagia from her offshore shrine back to the village. The priests pretended to steal her, you see. The priestesses set up such a lamentation: wailing, beating their breasts and tearing their cheeks. Those of us boys who were initiated that year proved our devotion by rescuing the goddess from those sacrilegious priests, who pretended to fight us, and bringing her home.” He smiled as it all came back to him. “We were heroes for two days.”

  “Will I be able to have an initiation?” Ikaros sounded uncertain, and Daidalos did not know what to tell him. Part of his rationale for returning to Naxos was to provide Ikaros with ancestral ties, a sense of belonging in which he could acquire a trade and find a bride. Would that ever come to fruition now?

  Staring up at the ceiling where the chipping blue plaster revealed the tie-beams underneath, Daidalos wished he had a simple answer. “I don’t know. This project will take many years to finish.”

  Later, as the afternoon deepened and the time grew shorter, he showed Ikaros his sketches in wax, and showed his approval when Ikaros demonstrated an ability to read some of the signs on Balashu’s original drawing.

  Daidalos kept Ikaros with him as long as possible, until the very last sliver of daylight vanished behind Mount Ida, until the stars emerged and the moon came out. When the time came, he would not let the guards take Ikaros, but personally escorted him back to the high priestess’s house. Pasiphae’s mansion was already alive with the laughter, conversation and music of a feast in progress, yet with his heavy heart Daidalos felt as though he was relinquishing his son to the underworld.

  He hugged the boy, almost crushing him, prolonging the farewell until the moment became awkward and unsustainable. Ikaros walked through the doors, vanished around the corner and was gone. Daidalos turned to leave, when the steward who had admitted them delicately laid a hand upon his arm. “High Priestess Pasiphae has invited you to join the feasting.” A disapproving study of his raiment followed, then a refined sniff indicating the offensive odor of sweat, and at last a pointed suggestion, “Perhaps you would care to return home and refresh your—?”

  Daidalos cut him short. “Tell the high priestess that I will be dining alone tonight.”

  “But Master Daidalos,” the steward protested in dismay, “an invitation from the goddess’s servant is tantamount to a command. You must attend.”

  Daidalos did not have to do anything, much less explain his position to a snobbish underling. Turning on his heel, he picked his way through the darkness, across the cleared hill and past the sanctuary with its crenellations of horns of consecration, black against the cobalt sky. His house was now close and warm, and very dark; Pu-abi had still not returned. He replenished the hearth, and despite the lingering warmth of the day, hunkered down beside the fire. He could neither eat nor sleep; he could do nothing but stare into the flames and wonder how the high priestess of Knossos should be able to deprive him of a father’s natural right to claim his son.

  An insistent rap at the door surprised him; he realized then that he had been dozing. Upon investigating, he discovered to his astonishment that Pasiphae herself was standing—or rather, swaying—upon his threshold, and utterly indignant. “I allow you to dine with me, yet you scorn my invitation.” She slurred her words. Daidalos detected a whiff of retsina. “You ungrateful, duplicitous man! Did I not just allow you to see your son?”

  So she had thrown him a bone. Did she truly expect him to grovel because of it? Daidalos was prepared to heap scorn upon her until he suspected she might be even more treacherous when drunk. “Look at me,” he replied sternly. “Do I look fit to attend a royal feast?”

  “You’ve been my guest before.” Swaying, she grasped the doorjamb to steady herself. “I will send you raiment and ornaments. You’ve no excuse.”

  “It’s hot, I’m tired and tomorrow I have to work.” Had she been anyone else, Daidalos would have shut the door in her face.

  Pasiphae snorted. “You’ve not built a single thing. You’ve been delaying all along, playing me for a fool.” She stumbled closer, yet tottered again. Daidalos instinctively reached out a hand, when the guard who was her escort intervened, taking her arm to steady her. She shrugged him off, stumbled back a few paces and then vomited onto the broken stones of the Minos’s ceremonial walkway.

  *~*~*~*

  “You should be ashamed, Pasiphae.”

  She disregarded the old man’s lecture while she nursed her headache with willow tea. The Minos never had anything useful to say, and now that he was sober, fed and bathed and ambulatory he had no business loitering on the portico where she sought solitude; she would have to take Yishharu to task for allowing the old busybody to stay. “You should talk,” she grumbled. Why had she drunk so much retsina? She did not handle it well. “You were out before the first course.”

 
; “Ah, I am so very sorry I missed out on the stuffed cucumbers and pickled sea urchins, but that is not what I meant and you know it.” The Minos licked his thin lips. “Everyone is talking about the architect you strong-armed into building your overblown temple. Violating guest-right? Holding an innocent hostage when his father is a commoner and no enemy of yours? Ill done, young lady, ill done.”

  Pasiphae had no need to justify herself to the doddering fool. She flung her naked arm over her eyes, wishing he would take the hint and just go.

  The Minos had other ideas. “Ignore me all you like. You ignore everyone else, and that’s to your detriment. I hear you even ignore the architect’s advice. Daidalos? Is that his name?” She heard him rise, then a tap-tapping against the stuccoed floor. Lowering her arm, she opened her eyes to find him tottering about the portico on his walking cane. If he could walk, then it was definitely time for him to go home.

  She vaguely remembered having argued with Daidalos last night, or had that episode been a dream? “You seem quite recovered,” she told the Minos in a maliciously sweet tone. “My servants will escort you home.”

  “Oh, yes, kick an elder out.” The Minos’s dry chuckle unsettled her, for his was the cackle of the demons she sometimes met while in a poppy trance. “But a day will come when you go too far.”

  His words with their sour aftertaste stayed with her long after he had gone. Ill done, young lady, ill done. She ordered an attendant to fetch a cool compress, yet neither its application nor the comfort of her couch eased her discomfort. No one truly understood the significance or the necessity of what she was trying to accomplish, that was the problem. Not her brother, who was always arguing for moderation; not her children, those spoiled brats; and certainly not that stubborn architect. Only her great-aunt Akalla would have understood. Yes, her predecessor would have agreed that sometimes one had to climb into the midden and dirty one’s hands for the greater good.