Knossos

by Laura Gill

  At that moment, his mind was fuggy with satiated musings of how splendid Humusi looked with her skin flushed and hair disarranged. He managed, however, to concentrate long enough to mumble, “I’m not using the pillars on the facade. Too much.”

  “Then what’re you going to replace them with?”

  “Hmm...” Aranaru reached for the tablet to set it aside. He was consistently amazed by his own shortsightedness when he considered how many years it had taken him to realize that the perfect wife had been right in front of him all along. How could he have ever considered wanting to marry Gula? “Come here and close your eyes.” He thumped the place beside him that she had so recently occupied; it was still warm from her body, and smelled like her. “It’s late.”

  They were in no hurry to start having children, regardless of what their families thought; the state of matrimony by itself was enough to contend with for the present. With a skillful hand, Humusi managed everything from the gods on the hearth to the farmstead with its servants. It was just as well that she had a talent for figures and organization, because her attempts to sew him a new set of clothes had not yielded any success.

  Their honeymoon passed without incident, and in the spring Knossos celebrated eight months that the Great Bull had not shaken the earth. Whatever small tremors people continued to report, the priests interpreted as the god settling back into his slumber.

  Nikanur’s future looked uncertain. At midwinter, the Minos and the high priestess delivered an ultimatum demanding his resignation or, at the very least, for an end to his abrasive policies, or the people would find a more expedient means of demonstrating their displeasure. That season, the high priest avoided making public appearances, and even delegated Banabiru and Haddal to make the customary spring offering to Poteidan to open the sea lanes. His informants seemed to vanish almost overnight. Humusi never heard another insulting word from any of his likeminded officials.

  On occasion, when Aranaru passed by the Ashera sanctuary, he stopped to remember the tormented priestess who used to sweep the threshold, and sometimes, daring the fates, he even whispered her name. Not that she was forgotten—people whispered among themselves about the treacherous priestess of the serpent sanctuary, who had gotten what she deserved at the mercy of the resurrected Mother Labrys—merely that her memory was preserved through the most simplistic mechanism, a dichotomy of light and dark, good and evil. These days, no mother would ever consider calling a newborn daughter Narkitsa. A lovely name had been reduced to a thing of ugliness.

  The Great Bull’s wrath had taught a hard lesson to those willing to learn: that every mortal carried within themselves a capacity for treachery and redemption, and a smattering of both the sacred and the profane.

  Six

  The Young Scribe

  1550 B.C.

  From his hiding place at the top of the stairs, eight-year-old Rusa eavesdropped on his grandfathers arguing downstairs.

  “A boy inherits his father’s trade.” Kumurru coughed out his answer. The former scribe’s frail constitution meant the house was often shuttered. It was a mild spring evening outside, but within it was stuffy. Rusa thought it smelled like stale garlic and old men’s flatulence.

  “Yikashata already has a son learning the scribe’s trade.” Zuhatta’s voice reverberated throughout the house. Rusa’s maternal grandfather, a priest-architect contracted to the great temple of the Labyrinth, visited rarely. Whenever he did, though, he invariably clashed with Kumurru, for reasons as trivial as a gift of honeyed almonds or a toy, or as important as what trade their grandsons would follow.

  Rusa crouched behind the plastered balustrade of the first landing, hardly daring to breathe because his grandfathers were arguing about him.

  “And you have a great-nephew, good-for-nothing that he is,” Kumurru pointed out. “Take him as an apprentice.” He managed to sputter through those two sentences before succumbing to a second coughing spell. If his fit persisted, Rusa’s mother would make him a tea, and then the house would stink of steeped herbs while he coughed up disgusting green mucus.

  “Why should I do that, when I have a perfectly good grandson?” Zuhatta challenged. “Dadarusa comes with me.” A tense pause followed. “Pah! You ridiculous miser. I should have known you’d begrudge me. One grandson is all I want—only one, when you have two more to become scribes—but no, you can’t spare anything, can you? Wouldn’t bear any cost for the wedding until your neighbors shamed you, you insisted on naming the boys yourself, over my daughter’s objections, and now...” He growled. “Yikashata might not stand up to you, but there are always the law courts—”

  “To hells with your suit,” Kumurru sputtered. “Rusa’s the brightest. He becomes a scribe.”

  Zuhatta snorted audibly. “Another scribe, a clerk in some musty storeroom somewhere, when he could be as brilliant as Daidalos?”

  Kumurru noisily cleared his throat. “It’s always Daidalos this, Daidalos that.” Rusa heard the scrape of a footstool shifting against the stuccoed floor, and tensed. “Where’s your brilliant career, eh?”

  “I live very well,” Zuhatta said. “Now make up your mind. It’s going to be either Dadarusa or Didanam.”

  “I can’t spare either one.” Rusa pictured Kumurru shaking his head as he said this. “Gods forbid, suppose Balinaru should die young. What will happen then? All three must have...”

  Rusa felt a hand clasp his shoulder, and gave a start. “That’s enough eavesdropping, young man,” his mother said softly. “It’s time for bed.”

  “But they’re arguing about me,” he whispered back.

  She shook her head. “It’s late.”

  Seeing he was not going to get his way, Rusa reluctantly left his hiding place, swiped dust off his bony knees, and followed his mother to the sleeping cubicle he shared with his two brothers.

  A lamp burned in the little room, casting a play of shadows and light across the whitewashed walls. The wide windows were shuttered. Beside the lamp crouched a husky eleven-year-old boy, laboring over the day’s lessons even at this hour because he had such trouble committing everything to memory. “Balinaru,” their mother said, “you can finish tomorrow.”

  Rusa’s elder brother squinted up at her. “But Naptu says I have to have it done by tomorrow.”

  “You need your rest, young man, or you won’t learn anything at all.” Their mother pressed her point by taking the little clay cup of water Balinaru used to clean his stylus, and the wooden stylus itself. A frustrated Balinaru carried the board he used as a writing surface to a corner to place on the shelf beside Rusa’s materials; one look told Rusa that his brother had gouged his clay tablets, as usual.

  Rusa climbed under his blanket while Balinaru washed in the adjoining privy. Didanam, their youngest brother, was already sound asleep on his little cot. Balinaru returned, crammed under the blanket beside Rusa, and flopped onto his side. Their mother bade them good-night, and took the lamp with her.

  Above the sound of his elder brother’s heavy breathing, Rusa heard their mother on the stairs, going down to remind their grandfathers that they were trying to sleep. “They were arguing,” Rusa whispered to his brother.

  “Uh-huh,” Balinaru mumbled.

  “About me.”

  “Don’t care.”

  That was a typical response. Balinaru lacked imagination. Everything he did was slow, plodding, like a beast of burden, and their tutor was always rapping his knuckles for some infraction. Balinaru certainly did not believe in the monsters under the bed that Rusa feared, professed no particular dread of the night, no belief in the terrifying stories their grandfathers told them to make them behave, and could fall asleep within moments.

  Rusa’s thoughts were too preoccupied with his grandfathers’ quarrel to dwell on the shrieking wild maidens of Dionysus or the fearsome, child-devouring bull-man of the Labyrinth that haunted his nights. The problem was that his grandfather Zuhatta had only daughters, and while women could and did inherit property an
d own businesses, they never became priest-architects. Rusa did not see why not. The great Labyrinth itself was ruled by a woman, a high priestess, who was as important and powerful as the Minos himself. Furthermore, the priestesses of Knossos were depicted large in the grandest frescoes, while priests were not, and they owned the largest estates. Therefore, as Rusa saw it, had his grandfather been willing to apprentice them, maybe Kitane or her sister Elissa could have become priestess-architects, and there would have been no need to argue now about Rusa’s future.

  Rusa dared not tell anyone, but he did not like the way his grandfather Kumurru never shared anything; even the name-day presents he gave his grandsons were cheap. Was grandfather Zuhatta really asking for that much? Apparently, yes. So now the two old men quarreled over their middle grandson like vultures. Rusa loved them both, and his stomach ached whenever he thought about the matter. Sometimes he considered running away so they would stop arguing, but then Rusa realized he did not really know where to go, because the farthest he had ever been was the sacred bull enclosure by the river, for the Bull Dance.

  And then, maybe no one would miss him at all, but they would turn their attention to Dida, and argue about him instead. He did not want his baby brother to suffer like that. Dida would not understand as he did.

  *~*~*~*

  Even though Rusa and his brothers woke shortly after sunrise, they never managed to catch their father before he left for the day. Yikashata was one of the Minos’s personal secretaries, a prestigious position demanding long hours at court. Sometimes the boys did not see him for days. Kitane, their mother, managed the house with two servants, and was always busy. Kumurru spent his days by the hearth downstairs, or reclining outside in the shady inner courtyard when the weather was hot.

  Their grandfather often complained about his daughter-in-law’s expenditures, which really did not seem that excessive. Kitane rarely donned the rich raiment or jewels she was entitled to adorn herself with as the wife of a high-ranking official. Rusa himself wore his brother’s cast-offs, as Dida inherited his. For a long time, he had not even realized that his family owned wealth, until early one morning he had chanced to wake and see Yikashata preparing to set out in the multicolored fringed robes and jewelry that was his court dress.

  The boys ate a simple but unappetizing breakfast of porridge, while Kumurru poked around his mouth with a probing finger. Rusa averted his eyes and closed his ears to his grandfather’s smacking, muttering and slurping.

  Kumurru was watching him, though, and as the boys gave their empty bowls to the servant woman and asked permission to leave the hearth, the old man took Rusa by the arm. “Work hard today, young man.” His breath was fetid; most of his teeth were rotten. “You’re going to be a very prosperous scribe someday.”

  While Kitane went about dressed like a common housewife, and a corner of the inner court had cracked tiles and needed a fresh coat of lime plaster, and there were no funds for anything new except a fine scarlet blanket for Kumurru’s couch, the old man had engaged a private tutor for the boys. Yet even there, he showed his miserly side. Naptu was scarcely twenty, a recent graduate of the local scribal school, and had never taught before. Kumurru granted him one free meal a day, a measure of fleece and flask of olive oil per month, but no board, and certainly not enough to live on. Rusa’s mother sometimes gave him extra food or honey from the family’s beehives, or a piece of leather to have made into a belt or pair of sandals. Kitane had little difficulty persuading Rusa to keep the secret, explaining, “The gods despise cheapness. Who knows, but a visitor or stranger at the door might be one of the immortals themselves in disguise.”

  “But Grandfather knows that, doesn’t he?” Rusa understood well enough to keep his voice down.

  Kitane’s smile was enigmatic. “All men have their faults.”

  Rusa considered his mother, with her heart-shaped face and plump hands that smelled like dough, the wisest woman who had ever lived. Surely she must be a goddess—Mother Rhaya herself—come to walk among mortals. Kitane did not think much of her husband’s father, who even after twelve years of marriage viewed her blood as wanting, and certainly not good enough for his son—and Rusa knew that because Kumurru said so often and loudly—but Kitane was too circumspect to air her complaints openly. “Father doesn’t say anything?” Rusa asked quietly.

  “Your father is not yet master of the house,” his mother told him, and in a tone that implied that things would be very different, perhaps even better, then. “Now hold your tongue and mind your lessons.”

  Tall and lanky, with pale freckles liberally sprinkled over his dark skin, Naptu was an uncompromising teacher. He did not spare the rod, even for minor infractions, and expected perfection. Balinaru, therefore, with his tendency to gouge the clay with his heavy hand and difficulty memorizing the lists he was assigned, was a source of constant disappointment, and always walked around with red, chapped knuckles and a sulking air from the punishments he took.

  “You are already a year behind, you lazy imbecile.” Naptu smacked the floor beside Balinaru with a willow switch; he cut them fresh twice a week from the riverbank. “How will anyone employ you with your clumsy hand?”

  Rusa remained invisible during these episodes, and not only because he dreaded the possibility of being whipped for gawking when he should have been working. Balinaru was sensitive. He knew that he was stupid. He knew that his big hands and husky frame—a throwback to his bull priest ancestors, though he did not know that—were ill-suited to the scribe’s trade. And above all, even had Kumurru and Naptu not made it abundantly clear through their insults, Balinaru knew that his brother had learned more than him after only a year in the schoolroom.

  Rusa had swiftly memorized his signs, all of his figures, and could do basic arithmetic and string sounds into simple words; he did not yet know the logograms the clerks used for inventorying, nor could he write sentences. However—and he was careful not to let on—he could recite from the Egyptian text, the Maxims of Ptahhotep, which Naptu used to instruct Balinaru in taking dictation, but that was only because he liked the various sayings.

  “God loves he who listens. He hates those who do not listen,” one saying went, which seemed directed at lazy students. Or: “Do not gossip in your neighborhood because people respect the silent.” Rusa took that to mean that Ptahhotep did not like it when the neighbor women gathered around the well or in shady courtyards with their wool-work to talk about everyone.

  For now, Rusa could write his name, which he considered a great accomplishment. Kaphti had three separate scripts, one the clerical shorthand used for inventorying goods and transactions, another for writing letters, and a third, much more obscure script dating from Bansabira’s time that was used for dedicating offerings to the temples. All three scripts were based on a system of open syllables that did not always correspond to the sounds they represented. Rusa found his name easy to write out—da-da-ru-sa—but Balinaru had difficulties, because scribes made no distinction between ‘r’ and ‘l,’ and no accommodation had been made for “ba,” which Rusa thought stupid. He reasoned that signs should exist for all sounds; the scribes should create one for “ba,” and all the “b” open syllables. Meanwhile, Balinaru had to spend long hours writing out his name—qa-ri-na-ru—so that he would not forget.

  He did it for other troublesome words, too, such as Knossos, which was written ko-no-so, and Tylissos, written as tu-ri-so. Rusa agreed that the words were hard to remember, and encouraged him to practice. Frustrated, Balinaru told him to mind his own business.

  The truth was, even at his age Rusa knew that his brother would not make much of a scribe. Naptu explained that it took ten years of hard studying for a youth to become a competent scribe. In the eyes of his tutor and grandfather, Balinaru had already wasted four of those years struggling to master the basics. “If you want to be like your father,” Naptu said, “then you will have to learn Egyptian and Akkadian, and probably the Hellene tongue, too. That’s what all the up
-and-coming young scribes are learning these days.”

  Rusa could not imagine ever knowing as much as his father. “Does he speak those tongues, Master Naptu?” he ventured cautiously.

  “Of course, young Dadarusa.” Naptu was, apart from Kumurru, the only person who regularly addressed Rusa by his full name. “Master Scribe Yikashata knows Egyptian, Akkadian, and a smattering of Hittite and Hellene. The more languages a scribe knows, the more valuable he is, and the more opportunities he has. His service is not limited to keeping tallies and writing letters for those poor people who have no learning.” Naptu’s tone dripped with disdain for the uneducated. “He can act as a translator for an important man such as the Minos, who may not speak more than a few words of any foreign tongue. He can become a priest and enter the temple, or become the steward of a great house, or, if he is learned and trusted enough, he can even undertake important missions as an ambassador.”

  “But our father never travels,” Balinaru pointed out, “except he goes sometimes to Katsamba or Amnissos.”

  “Foolish boy, do you think Master Scribe Yikashata is the only such servant in the Minos’s service?” Naptu, Rusa had noticed, did not extend the same tolerance to Balinaru’s queries, even when he asked a good question, such as now. “Your father has contacts in Katsamba and Amnissos. Other servants have contacts elsewhere. They act as intermediaries for the Minos.”

  In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, Naptu also gave instruction in subjects such as genealogy and history. Rusa and Balinaru were expected to be able to recite their own lineages as well as that of the Minos. Rusa learned that he had been named after Minos Dadarusa, who had lived when Daidalos built the first Labyrinth, and that his mother Kitane was descended from both priest-architects and bull priests such as those who staged the yearly Bull Dance. That sounded rather grand as far as Rusa was concerned, certainly no cause for his grandfather to complain.