Knossos

by Laura Gill

  Then Tarina suddenly announced that it was enough. “Climb out now—no, don’t sit down, your muscles will cramp, and you still have things to do before I say you’re finished. Walk around a bit, stretch your limbs.” The brothers obeyed, and staggered around the shed until Tarina told them to fetch the buckets in the corner. “Shovel in the mixture and take it outside.”

  During their time indoors, Tarina’s workers had laid pallets in the yard for the new mudbricks. Each one was equipped with a rectangular wooden mold. Rusa had no time to inspect either—or even to set down the heavy buckets—before the master bricklayer, who had followed them out, was at him and Balinaru again, ordering them to start making bricks. “You’re not here to dally. My workers are expected to produce. Now slop that mixture in there.”

  Rusa wanted to shout at him to slow down, that he was only a boy, not even one of Tarina’s stupid workers, and it was his first time, but with his earlier mishap still fresh in his mind, he held his tongue and started filling his mold.

  Tarina continued to ride them, while Zuhatta silently observed. “Press that mixture into the corners. Your bricks have to be dense, perfectly rectangular. Get those paddles and start pounding.” Rusa did his best to comply with each rapid-fire command. Balinaru, too, was struggling. “Unless you get it right,” the master bricklayer harangued, “those bricks aren’t any good to me.”

  “You can use your fists, too, boys,” Zuhatta called out. “You should be turning out seventy bricks an hour. You don’t have time to waste on paddles. Once in all four corners, thrice in the center.”

  Rusa did as told, despite his tired arms. Then he grasped the mold in both hands, discovering that it had been greased inside to make it easier to lift. His brick looked all right, though he did not have time to really inspect it before he had to plunk the mold beside it and begin all over again.

  The brothers each filled their pallet, using up the mixture to make what must have been thirty bricks, before Tarina allowed them to stop. By then, every part of them ached. Bricklaying was definitely harder than they had thought, and no fun at all. Balinaru’s heavy-lidded expression said he was sorry he had lobbied so hard to leave the schoolroom for the morning.

  “Now we let them dry in the sun,” Tarina said. “That can take anywhere between one month to four. Try to use them too soon, when they haven’t dried all the way through, and they’ll crumble.”

  The boys nodded dumbly. All they cared about at that point was getting something to drink and lying down. They were allowed to wash from a trough of clayey water, and given water with barley and mint to revive them, but as for rest, they still had to endure the long walk home.

  Rusa dreaded his homecoming, even more because while Zuhatta asked Balinaru how he liked the brick maker’s trade, he did not acknowledge Rusa with a single word. Not even a simple nod. He might as well have been invisible, and that, he reflected, was not such a loathsome thing right now, considering that the incident was neither forgiven nor forgotten. There would surely be a whipping. It only remained to be seen as to which elder would administer the blows.

  Once home, Zuhatta summoned a servant over Kumurru’s objections and sent the boys straight to the bath for a proper scrubbing. Meanwhile, he told their mother everything, for by the time Rusa and his brother were judged clean enough to leave the bath, Kitane was fuming with indignation. “No supper for you tonight, young man,” she snapped at Rusa. “Now get upstairs, and don’t let me see or hear so much as a peep from you. Your father will deal with you when he returns.”

  Balinaru said nothing on the way upstairs, but his reproachful demeanor was just as crushing. Rusa stretched out on his side of the mattress, hardly caring about the prospect of empty belly, and too exhausted to cry. He just wanted to curl into himself and expire from shame.

  The tantalizing aroma of fried onions and garlic woke him at dusk. Balinaru was downstairs, leaving him alone with his sore limbs and a gurgling stomach. Rusa breathed, watching the blue shadows play across the ceiling, awaiting, and dreading his father’s arrival. He might as well be dead.

  Before he knew it, Rusa nodded off again. Then there was darkness, and harsh yellow lamplight in his face, and his father’s voice ordering him to wake up. “Balinaru, move over. Dadarusa, hurry up. I haven’t all night.”

  A dejected Rusa stirred. Yikashata’s sudden grip on his upper arm motivated him to hustle. He tried to stifle his yawns as his father dragged him down the stairs, through the entryway, and into the inner court.

  Yikashata unhanded him in the darkness of the courtyard. “I am ashamed of you, Dadarusa.” He set the lamp down on a stone bench. “What do you think you’re about, disrespecting your elders? Your grandfather’s already told me how you behaved with Master Tarina.”

  Rusa could not get his thoughts together, he was so frazzled with dread and bleary from sleeping.

  Rather than shake or strike him to elicit an answer, Yikashata continued, “I thought to bring you with me to court, but what am I to do with you now?” His voice remained low and level, but cold. “How can I trust you not to behave insolently if the Minos or his steward criticizes your dress or admonishes you to be silent?” Bending down, he shook a finger in Rusa’s face. He still wore his court raiment, and exuded a scent of narcissus oil and cuttlefish ink. “When your betters tell you that you’re not fit, you bow your head and apply yourself harder. Now I have to go apologize to Master Tarina and hope he doesn’t hold your lack of manners against me.”

  In a very small voice, Rusa stated, “I said I was sorry.”

  Yikashata slapped him across the face. “As your father, I am responsible for your behavior, and today you reflected poorly on me.” Wincing, Rusa started to cry, choking, snuffling, and letting the tears roll freely down his cheeks, not because the blow was physically painful so much as the knowledge that his father rarely struck him. “Do I want this man to think I cannot raise well-behaved sons? Do I want him to speak badly of Master Scribe Yikashata?” He punctuated each rhetorical question with a wag of his finger. “What would Minos Hammuras think if he heard?”

  Rusa shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he croaked.

  “And as well you should be, young man. Now go to the bench and lift up your tunic.” Yikashata gestured to a place beside the oil lamp. Rusa fisted tears from his eyes and noticed then that his father had already cut a switch. He did not protest, though, or beg for reprieve, merely did as he was told, and waited in the glow of the hissing lamp for the switch to cut through the air.

  He tried not to cry out, but could not help wincing as the willow switch stung his backside. Yikashata never put the full strength of his arm behind his blows, and never landed more than four, yet that did nothing to ease Rusa’s shame, which stung far harder than his buttocks. Had he not disappointed his father so, Yikashata would have taken him to see the Minos’s court.

  Crawling back into bed, Rusa ignored Balinaru’s sleepy grumbling and cried himself to sleep. The next day he struggled with his lessons, enduring further humiliation when Naptu assigned him three new words to learn, shame, obedience, and honor. “It is not enough to be intelligent,” his tutor stated, “when you lack the common sense to keep your mouth shut. Dadarusa, you will copy out each word thirty times. You will contemplate the importance of each one, and then, when your tablet is full, and your words neatly written you will expound upon the subject, telling me in detail what you—” A snicker from Balinaru distracted him. “Would you care to share in your brother’s lesson, young man? No? Then finish your sentences. And you have grime under your fingernails.” Naptu tapped Balinaru’s right hand with one finger. “What you were doing yesterday in the brickmaker’s yard is irrelevant. A scribe always keeps his hands immaculate.”

  Rusa struggled at first with the unfamiliar signs. They represented less of a challenge, which he loved, and more of a burden, an ox-yoke around his neck. He could have cried, because no matter how well he did at his lessons now, his father had told him outright t
hat he was no longer good enough to go to court. If only he could run away, go to sea with Uncle Lagish, and find someplace where no one knew who he was, or how bad he had been!

  For a second night, he cried himself to sleep. The next morning, Zuhatta came to the house, but not to take him anywhere. His grandfather paid him scant attention, having come instead for Balinaru, of all people, to take him to the quarry to observe how the blocks were broken.

  “Your bricks are doing very well,” he informed Rusa’s brother, as though Balinaru had made them all!

  It did not help that Balinaru happily accepted the credit, and, worse, asked a pertinent question. “Why doesn’t Master Tarina fire the bricks in an oven? They would dry faster that way.”

  Zuhatta’s heavy brows twitched, as though the idea had never occurred to him before. Rather, Rusa bitterly reflected, he had not thought Balinaru capable of saying anything intelligent. “Well, I suppose he could, but it would take quite an oven, and then there’s the expense of all the fuel to keep the fire going, which he’d have to pass onto his clients. So, no, while fired bricks might last longer, sun-dried ones are just as good, and much cheaper to produce.”

  “You’re wasting your time with him.” Kumurru raised the usual objections. “The eldest son always follows in his father’s trade. Isn’t that true, Balinaru?”

  “Um, I don’t...” Balinaru’s expression reflected his conflict. Rusa did not envy his dilemma yet did not feel particularly sorry for him, either.

  With Balinaru gone, Rusa might have had the schoolroom to himself, but his mother brought Dida for some preliminary tutoring before he started his formal lessons that autumn. Rusa applied himself to his arithmetic while Naptu, hovering at Dida’s shoulder, demonstrated yet again how to hold a stylus—his boisterous younger brother had Balinaru’s trouble with mastering the art of the subtle touch—and how to form his number signs. Dida could already count to a hundred, and could recognize a handful of logograms. What was difficult was persuading him to sit still; the more he squirmed and complained that he was bored, the more strained Naptu’s patience became. Thus, his lessons were short, and the tutor released him to play in the courtyard while his older brother continued to labor over his fractions. A resentful Rusa wondered why Naptu could not simply have followed his usual routine, and beaten or berated Dida into submission.

  No. Naptu saved his criticism for Rusa himself. “You are growing careless with your arithmetic, Dadarusa.” Why did it always have to be “Dadarusa this” and “Dadarusa that,” anyway? Rusa loathed the sound of his formal name. “A third of twenty-four is not six, but eight.”

  So he had to erase his work and do his fractions all over again, even the ones that were correct, and that delayed his spelling and grammar lessons, meaning he had to work after the noon sleep.

  His father returned early with treats from the Minos’s table. “He’s feasting a pair of Hellene princes tonight,” Yikashata told his wife and father. “Quarreling brothers. An oracle told them that only his judgment could bring an end to their dispute.” He shook his head. “Thoroughly unpleasant fellows. Balinaru, eat slowly or you’ll make yourself sick. Dida, octopus ink sacs are a delicacy. Rusa, you’re not eating anything. You haven’t decided to be picky tonight, have you?”

  Rusa had scarcely touched his favorite fried cheese bread. After his dispiriting day, he could not summon enough appetite to choke anything down. And now, with everyone scrutinizing him, the dam broke and he burst into tears, and was abashed because he knew he ought to behave better.

  Balinaru even said so, “Don’t be such a crybaby.”

  “Shut your mouth, young man,” Kitane said quickly.

  Rusa knuckled his eyes and tried to get hold of himself, but now he was hiccupping, unable to control the spasms in his diaphragm.

  “I think I know what this is about.” Rising from his stool, Yikashata lifted Rusa in his arms as easily as if he were still a toddler and carried him outside. On the bench where two nights ago he had been disciplined, his father set him on his knee. “Why are you crying, Dadarusa? Your mother says you cried yourself to sleep again last night, and Naptu told me before that you were listless and careless with your lessons this morning.” A hand stroked his hair as he burrowed into his father’s chest. “Do you think we’re still angry with you, young man?”

  “I’m sorry.” Rusa’s voice was muffled in the fine linen of his father’s tunic. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “I know you didn’t. You were defending your brother.” Then, to Rusa’s amazement, Yikashata laughed softly, the sound a reassuring rumble that passed from his chest into Rusa’s body. “Master Tarina told me everything—not that it excuses what you did, though,” he emphasized.

  Rusa hiccupped, feeling a little better, but not quite.

  Yikashata nuzzled his scalp, speaking into his hair. “You have to understand that there will be times when your betters behave in ways you think are wrong. They will say or do something objectionable, and you will have to keep your peace because it is not your place to argue. Even if they ask your opinion, you will have to mind your tongue. Do you understand, Rusa? Let the gods judge.”

  “Do you have to do that?” Rusa snuggled against his father, whose hand stroked his shoulders and back to soothe his hiccups.

  “All the time,” Yikashata confirmed. “Some of the Minos’s guests and petitioners are rude. They condescend to me like a common servant rather than the master scribe I am, but I hold my tongue and remain polite, because my behavior reflects on the Minos, just as yours reflects on me and your mother.”

  Rusa had not known that about his father. He had assumed that, being an important servant to the Minos, everyone deferred to Yikashata, yet that was not so at all. It did not, however, change his opinion of his father, who was to him the kindest, wisest, most wonderful man in the whole world. “Were you really going to take me to court?”

  “Yes,” Yikashata answered. “And I still mean to, but I think perhaps it’s best that we should wait until you’re a little older. You’ve barely begun your schooling.”

  It was because he had misbehaved. His father did not trust him to hold his tongue and mind his manners with the Minos. Rusa felt sad again. “Am I going to be a scribe, Father?”

  Yikashata did not say yes or no, merely continued stroking his shoulders. The hiccups were already subsiding, and Rusa, burnt out from crying, began to feel comfortably drowsy. Then his father spoke. “You would make a terrible bricklayer, and probably not a very good mason, either, but I think—and Naptu agrees—that you have the talent to become a very successful scribe. One day you might even work for the Minos, become his personal scribe, perhaps even an ambassador. You’re very bright, Rusa, but you must learn patience and self-control.”

  Rusa was not sure how he felt about being a scribe, and copying out lists and doing arithmetic and grammar all day long. “I can’t go to sea with Uncle Lagish and have adventures?”

  “What’s this?” Yikashata’s hand paused against the small of his back. He shifted, compelling Rusa to look at him. “Dadarusa, son, are you saying you want to become a mariner?” His tone quavered with incredulity. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Zuhatta had said the same thing. Why were the adults so against having adventures? Rusa did not answer.

  Yikashata sighed heavily. “I see. Lagish spins a good story, Rusa, but his life is dangerous and hard, and I don’t mean the narrow escapes from the Kentaurai or the burning mountain or the Egyptians. I mean the everyday perils: storms at sea, disease, drunken brawls, cutthroats in dark alleys, sunstroke from straining at the oars, bad food, broken bones. You would be dead within a month.”

  No one had ever mentioned those things, but Rusa remained skeptical. “Amanas and Hamo—”

  “They’re older than you, and their lives are not easy,” Yikashata explained. “Being Lagish’s sons don’t guarantee them any special privileges. They work as hard as the other sailors, and live rough. That is not a life for
you.”

  “But I thought...”

  “Sailors are excellent liars.”

  Rusa did not know now what to think, and he was tired. Fortunately, his father did not press him for an answer, but kissed the top of his head and said softly, “If you don’t eat your fried bread, your brothers won’t leave you anything.”

  *~*~*~*

  The next evening, just as Rusa and his brothers were about to go to bed, their father, having returned from court not a quarter-hour before, came upstairs to bid them good-night. Dida clamored for a bedtime story, despite Kumurru’s repeated admonishments that he was much too old for them, while Balinaru blustered through an excited account of his day’s excursion to the quarry with Zuhatta. However, Rusa, who was still wary after his recent mishap, hung back.

  Yikashata good-naturedly waded through the gauntlet of his sons. “Dida, you already know all my stories by heart. Balinaru, your mother told me about your day with your grandfather.” Then his gaze traveled to his middle son. “Rusa, come here. I brought you something.”

  That something turned out to be a fragment of crumbling clay tablet, which instantly quenched Balinaru and Dida’s envy, and left Rusa confused and disappointed. Mindful of his father’s lecture about being polite no matter what the circumstances, he nevertheless tried to feign enthusiasm. “What is it?”

  “Here, I will show you.” Yikashata sat down on the edge of the brothers’ bed, in the illumination of the burning oil lamp, and motioned for Rusa to join him. “Now, this tablet belongs to the archives of the Labyrinth, so I have to return it tomorrow, but I thought you would like to see something from the time of Daidalos.”

  Rusa did not understand what a broken bit of scribal tally had to do with the master architect until his father started tracing the faded signs with one finger. “Can you read this, Rusa?”

  The flickering light and the worn nature of the tablet gave Rusa trouble, but after a moment’s effort he recognized three signs—i-sa-ra—then the dots and vertical dashes indicating numbers. Rusa thought the figure might read “fourteen;” the clay surface had crumbled there. And then there was what looked like a logogram, except that Rusa had not memorized those signs well enough to decipher that one.