Knossos

by Laura Gill

  “You’re a good woman who deserves better.” He took Pu-abi’s hands in his, and explained the dilemma as best he could. “I’m too old and tired for marriage, too worn out to make a good lover.” Daidalos did not go so far as to explain about the last time he had tried to lie with a woman; the goddess Ishtar had not been with him that afternoon. He winced to remember the failure of his manly vigor, which bit him far more sharply than being thrown out of a tent by a spiteful prostitute. “As for giving me another son, there’s no replacing Ikaros. You know that.”

  Tears in her eyes, Pu-abi nodded. She kissed his hands, anyway. Daidalos patted her head. “If you want a husband or a lover, you’re free to take one. If your family can’t provide you with a dowry, I will. Just don’t ask me to be the one. Those desires are dead now.” He became pensive. “I don’t know what keeps me going anymore, except maybe the temple or the cruel whims of the gods.”

  Sometimes in the darkness, though, he thought about his wife, even imagined himself fifteen years ago and a thousand miles further east, in the small room they had occupied in Sippar. They had been happy living on the floor above her brother’s large family. There had been no shortage of good-paying work, so why had they left? Daidalos remembered that his brother-in-law—what was his name again?—had been jealous and controlling, and scornful that his sister had married a foreigner. They could have moved elsewhere, for Sippar had other neighborhoods, but... He could no longer remember why he had dragged his wife from her birthplace into the Canaanite wilderness toward Cyprus. She had wept piteously—yes, he recalled that—and his sisters-in-law and their aged parents had wept, and he had felt guilty for tearing the family apart.

  What had she looked like, his Eshaduana? It troubled Daidalos to realize that he remembered the sunlight glittering on the blue and green glazed tiles of the king’s palace far better than he did his own wife’s face. She had had brown skin and curling black hair, he recalled, but her features were a blur. Pu-abi was nothing like her, of that much he was sure, except for the kindness of her heart. Eshaduana would not have begrudged his taking the Babylonian woman as his second wife.

  He did not need to replace Ikaros. The constant presence of Iapyx, that imperfect reflection of his son, kept the pain fresh.

  For his part, Iapyx seemed to comprehend the turmoil his presence caused, and maintained his earlier deference. By night, he slept on a pallet near the hearth, keeping a dagger near to hand should trouble threaten, while by day he worked on the building site among the laborers; he made bricks, shifted dirt and carried water. He neither complained nor asked for anything.

  Daidalos gave little thought to the youth; he had more pressing concerns. Spring with its warmer temperatures raised the question of constructing the first sanctuary. Daidalos had in mind an ideal site on the southeast slope; he needed only to take additional measurements and assess the stability of the hillside after winter’s torrential rains.

  When Balashu saw the master sketches, he inquired, “You wouldn’t prefer to build farther north? There is ample room right here below the workshops.” And with a gesture, he indicated the high priestess’s mansion hugging the southeastern corner of the hill. “We should not disturb the lady.”

  “There should be a buffer between the workshops and sanctuary, so the priests can conduct their rites in peace.” Though true enough, Daidalos nursed a malicious thrill at the thought of the construction disrupting Pasiphae’s precious peace and quiet. He wanted the grunts and singing of the laborers to keep her awake. He wanted the chiseling, sawing and hammering to drive her to distraction, and the windblown limestone dust to sully her draperies and clothing. She had not come to offer her condolences. She had never apologized for holding Ikaros hostage. She had not even sent a servant to express her remorse. Let her days be as tormented as his nights.

  Yet Pasiphae never emerged from the house, never issued a protest. She did not even appear to make her daily devotions at the old sanctuary; another woman wearing the high priestess’s regalia acted as her proxy. Perhaps she had been ousted for impiety. No one knew anything, nor did Yishharu divulge any information other than that his sister was observing a period of ritual purification and contemplation.

  Daidalos soon forgot about her as the work intensified. Cutting into the southeast slope was done in a series of terraces, which the carpenters and Balashu’s team of masons used as a template to build a staircase grounded on tamped earth, and overlaid with ashlar and gypsum slabs.

  He had done his calculations with regard to the cutting. It took one laborer all of a seven-hour work day to shift one cubic meter of earth. By his estimation, there were hundreds of meters of earth to be moved. Therefore, he authorized Kurra to requisition additional workers from the surrounding countryside. Yishharu added an incentive by proclaiming that any able-bodied man seeking favor with the gods should dedicate a day’s labor to the temple. Soon, Daidalos had more potential laborers than the site could accommodate. Some were women. The high priest’s announcement made it difficult to turn any of them away, so Daidalos had the scribes appoint overseers to rotate the volunteers between working the cutting, carting away debris and dirt, and making bricks. Yishharu’s officials maintained the air of cooperation by providing food and ritual blessings.

  Daidalos soon discovered a fascinating new dimension to the excavation. As Balashu had described, and he himself had long-suspected, the hill was of the type upon which a succession of houses had been built, demolished and brand-new ones raised atop the old. Although the laborers made quick work of dismantling whatever structures their spades uncovered, Daidalos sometimes retrieved interesting relics from the earth. Potsherds from Pasibe’s time, once cleaned and laid out, displayed an intriguing blend of black and brown pigments intended to simulate wood. Daidalos showed them to Pu-abi, who did not consider them particularly attractive.

  In layers of stones and charcoal, Daidalos recognized the remains of ancient hearths. Laborers discovered fired bricks of a kind used during a short phase three thousand years ago. And still they delved, finding potsherds of white with red decorations, bits of obsidian and figurines that resembled squat, pregnant women. Those men and women who dug for the blessings of the temple believed they were digging through three or four hundred years of habitation at most; they could not have fathomed that they were, in fact, going back over four thousand years in time, down to the original surface of the hill on which Aramo, brother of Knos, had built his farmstead.

  The spades had just started turning up broken tools of antler bone when a temporary laborer brought to Daidalos’s attention a discovery he had made toward the easternmost lip of the cutting. “If it’s something sacred,” the old man stated, “then it’s best that only a priest touches it.”

  Fragmentary bones, pieces of which were still coated with traces of scarlet ocher, protruded from the ground where the man’s spade had disturbed them. Daidalos had seen laborers accidentally break into long-forgotten tombs or, as in Egypt, grave pits where the hot sand had preserved the corpses. Yet he could not say whether these bones were animal or human, only that the presence of red ocher indicated that they were sacred. He sent to his lodging for a cloth to drape over the remains so they would not be trod upon, then sent for Yishharu.

  Yishharu spent a long time on his knees excavating the bones with an awl and lady’s cosmetic brush. “Cattle skulls,” he determined. “Yet not just any cattle skulls. Long ago, Poteidan gave his son Minos some fine bulls from the sea. When Minos established the first settlement on this hill, he offered them back in sacrifice. These must be the very bones.” He reverently covered them again with the linen cloth. “You were right to send for me, Master Daidalos. I will have a priest remove these remains and keep them until such time as we can return them to the god.”

  After the cattle bones, the laborers turned up no further traces of human habitation. Nevertheless, they continued delving. Those chambers dedicated to the Earth-Shaker must be subterranean. Only when the laborers
excavated seven meters below the central courtyard, fifteen feet past the hill’s original surface was Daidalos satisfied enough to let them enjoy a holiday.

  Daidalos himself did not rest. He needed the lowermost levels finished and roofed over before winter, lest the torrential rains flood the cutting. Adequate drainage was the problem foremost on his mind when he went to Master of the Waterworks Arikusa to check on the progress of his order.

  Even older than Daidalos, with a spry walk and a lion’s mane of white hair, Arikusa officially belonged to the potter’s trade. His hands could shape anything out of clay, from female votive figurines with bell-shaped skirts to toy bulls to the half-inch scale model houses architects used as teaching tools. What set him apart from other potters, however, and guaranteed his fortune was his talent for producing and installing eastern-style terracotta drainage pipes.

  Arikusa had spent weeks fulfilling Daidalos’s order. As his men carefully loaded finished sections of pipe onto padded carts for delivery to the hill, Arikusa explained how craftsmen throughout the surrounding area had been instructed to give precedence to any work concerning the temple project. “You should hear the complaints from my other customers. My workshop is back-ordered at least six months.”

  A day later, he and Daidalos staked out a basement-level floor plan and laid out the drainage grid. “It’s not often that I get to install pipes before the foundation is laid,” he commented. “Most of my work these days is taking up the floors in old mansions. You’re fortunate that you don’t have to endure the same grousing. Everybody wants drainage in their house, but nobody wants to deal with the fuss of actually having the work done.”

  Each foot-long section of pipe, whether straight or curved, was produced from molds. They slotted one into the next via a tab-and-collar feature that was then sealed with a mixture of waterproof gypsum clay, the recipe for which Arikusa refused to divulge. “Can’t tell you, or I would be finished within a week.” He shared a conspiratorial wink. “But any work for the temple is good for the gods, and what’s good for the gods is good for me.”

  Arikusa’s specialists not only installed the pipes, but dug the ditches, supplied the waterproofed stone ducts and the perforated drainage covers, and took measurements for the catchment basins. Daidalos liked his no-nonsense attitude and, wanting to engage in more conversation, extended a rare invitation to his hearth.

  Arikusa brought fresh herbs from his daughter-in-law’s garden. He reverenced the household gods, complimented Pu-abi and acknowledged Iapyx with a friendly nod. “I was sorry to hear about your recent bereavement, Daidalos,” he said, “but thank the gods you still have this son.”

  Daidalos bristled despite himself. “Iapyx is a servant.”

  “Is he? Ah, then my apologies!” Arikusa exclaimed. “Someone told me—but never mind that. It was bad mannered of me.” He cleared his throat and looked around for a distraction. “Speaking of waterworks, I understand you’ve several workshops north of the sanctuary. Have you considered installing a system of pipes to drain out the waste water—no, Daidalos, hear me out. This isn’t just me soliciting business. I’ve got more work orders than any one businessman can handle. It just occurred to me that the hill doesn’t receive much water—ah, thank you.” He accepted the basket of bread Pu-abi handed him. “Hmm, yes, the wells are drying out, and now you’ve got a whole quarter of workshops that are going to need water and a way to get rid of it. Let me send my eldest son to survey your north quarter—no cost—and make some suggestions. And my youngest son also has a tile business, if you need decorations.”

  Daidalos contemplated the wine in his cup. Solicitations, among other things, were an architect’s bane. “The decorations aren’t up to me.”

  “No,” Arikusa agreed, “but High Priest Yishharu might splurge if he thinks it might please the gods and benefit the temple. You’re fortunate to be dealing with him, you know. High Priestess Pasiphae has a habit of ordering everything in sight, then forgetting to pay for it.” He snorted. “Her forgetfulness is rather selective, if you ask me.”

  As long as she kept her distance. “Where is she now?” Daidalos asked.

  “Still in her mansion. I heard a rumor the other day that she was very sick. Maybe it’s true. No one’s seen hide or hair of her since midwinter.” Arikusa frowned. “Odd how she hasn’t complained about the construction being so close to her house. Yishharu must have a tight rein on her. Looks like he finally grew a backbone. I’m not surprised. A high priest of Poteidan shouldn’t be taking his orders from his younger sister.”

  Daidalos took a little flatbread, but no olive oil. “I don’t care about the politics of the people I work for.”

  Arikusa let his surprise show. “I don’t see how you can avoid that. Now, I remember installing the Minos’s drainage about ten years ago. Everybody was raving about how the comforts of Ur and Babylon were finally coming to Knossos. I never had so much business. Well, Lady Pasiphae called me over to her mansion and demanded to know—demanded, mind you, without even doing me the courtesy of offering me wine or a stool to sit upon—to know what rate I’d charged him. She insisted on better work at a cheaper rate.” He chuckled, revealing that he still possessed most of his teeth. “Of course, I lied about everything, so she ended up paying the same price—that is, when she actually got around to paying.”

  Daidalos recognized in Arikusa’s anecdote the pitfalls of working for the wealthy and powerful; such experiences had factored into his initial refusal to accept the temple commission. Yet if he had accepted, Ikaros would still be alive. Daidalos had spent many sleepless nights wondering about that. “All I know is the high priestess and the Minos are rivals. She seized power and took his house.”

  “Rivals?” Arikusa snorted, waving the notion aside like a foul smell. “It doesn’t even have anything to do with them, but something that happened more than a hundred years ago. Ancient history.” He moistened his mouth with another swallow of wine. “Rasuros’s great-grandfather ousted Pasiphae’s great-great-grandmother from Knossos. Packed her up and sent her to the Juktas sanctuary. Not that anybody could blame him, from what my grandfather told me.

  “High Priestess Europa was a sour old bitch, I hear. She stayed in seclusion. Nobody ever saw her and nobody around here missed her, either. I don’t think she lived long. But Europa’s granddaughter managed to seize control of the Juktas sanctuary.” Arikusa paused while Iapyx refilled his cup. “Priestess Akalla. I never saw her, but I’ve heard she was so fearsome she could make a man’s sack shrivel up with a single glance. High Priestess Orata—she came before Pasiphae—was terrified of her. With good reason, too. The last thing that withered hag did before death took her was to have that poor woman eliminated. Poisoned, maybe. Exiled, I don’t think so. Nobody ever saw her again. That was about, hmm, maybe twelve or thirteen years ago.”

  Daidalos believed every word, and sensed that Arikusa had much more to share. “Go on.”

  “Lady Pasiphae moved into the high priestess’s mansion while men were still out searching for that unfortunate woman. Unseemly haste, my wife called it. People whispered then that they must have planned the whole thing together, the hag and the young bitch.” Arikusa drew in the air the sign against evil. “Not that anyone can touch her. She’s allied herself to important families, taken husbands among them and borne children. She owns the entire hill. A few years ago, she ousted the high priest of Poteidan-that-was and installed Yishharu.”

  Except now Yishharu, it seemed, had turned against her. “And the Minos?” Daidalos pressed.

  “Poor man. You ever meet him?” As Daidalos shook his head, Arikusa went on, “Rasuros is charming, pious and well-liked. He was absolutely marvelous when me and my workers were in his house. Never complained once about the noise or mess. Offered us refreshments. Asked some very learned questions about the pipes, sealings and the basins. Showed real interest in what we were doing. As far as I know, he had nothing against Lady Pasiphae when she first arrived in Knossos.
He still doesn’t understand why she’s so unreasonable. He doesn’t care anything about the old feud. Like I said: ancient history. Pasiphae? Her head’s in the clouds. Always wanting more, always impatient for something. From the way she treats Rasuros, you’d think she was Lady Europa come back to haunt his ancestor.”

  *~*~*~*

  The same day the masons started building up the foundations for the lowermost sanctuary, a priest arrived with a direct order from Yishharu to halt all work. “Go from this place,” the young man said, making a laughable effort to sound sanctimonious, “and stay away for four days and nights. The earth must be properly dedicated to Lord Poteidan. It is not for you or anyone else to observe these rites.”

  Daidalos passed the order along to his workers, while wondering about the extremity of it. Four days and nights sounded excessive, when in other lands and other work sites the dedicatory rites had been very brief, involving an animal sacrifice, perhaps a libation of blood and milk poured upon the earth, or the burial of sacred objects. But the sanctuary, he remembered, had been previously inhabited. It would have to be ritually cleansed, its ghosts expunged, and its long-ago offerings restored to the earth.

  Rather than give his workers another holiday, he shifted them to a location just west of the northeast storehouses. Yishharu had requested a north-south hall wherein temple officials and scribes might receive tithes and taxes and record the tallies. Adjoining the hall would be cubicles for the scribes and for the storage of the tallies.