by Laura Gill
When the time came, a servant fetched the scribes. Ankeros shuffled his notes into a heap for later. Rusa marshaled the junior scribes, inspecting their attire and writing materials. Appearance was everything. The Minos had been known to launch into a tirade when his servants failed to meet expectations. He had even taken a pair of shears to an unfortunate middle-aged courtier who dared appear before him with the outlandish lovelocks favored by younger dandies.
Today, there were no dignitaries bearing messages to be read aloud, and no ambassadors requiring the services of a translator. Rusa and Ankeros maintained a quiet but observant presence while the junior scribes did the mundane work of recording the usual land disputes, petty thefts, and lawsuits constituting the bulk of the court’s business. Sometimes the Minos paused to inquire about an issue of legal precedence, at which time either Rusa or Ankeros provided an answer.
The steward of the chamber started to announce the next petitioner when a tremendous crack of thunder shook the building. The Minos started, the junior scribes and priests jumped, and the petitioner threw his arms over his head and crouched in the doorway. Even guards, trained to remain impassively at attention, looked apprehensive.
His heart pounding, Rusa tried to collect himself. Thunderheads were a common phenomenon in winter, during the season’s torrential rains, but this, he sensed, seemed like another, louder phase of the distant thunder and rumbling that everyone had been hearing for months.
“This is a sign from Velchanos,” Sammaro announced shakily, without, of course, identifying what the sign signified. This once, Rusa could not blame the priest’s lack of specificity.
The Minos ordered the nearest steward to clear the chamber. Gesticulating wildly, Ramparo banished all but the most essential personnel, which meant the junior scribes were obliged to leave.
Even with the double doors shut, Rusa sensed people lingering in the antechamber and courtyard; their unease merely added to the turbulence in the atmosphere. It was not, he reflected, dissimilar to the static charge he felt during a thunderstorm.
The Minos sat hunched over, rubbing his temples. “Sammaro,” he said gruffly. “Take the omens.”
Interpreting portents like sudden lightning strikes or thunder on a clear day required priests to go outside to observe the phenomenon. Sammaro took Annatusu with him, while everyone else waited in the audience chamber.
The priests hastened back with disappointing results. “We had to rely on witnesses,” Sammaro explained, “as there was neither thunder nor lightning to be observed.”
“And what did your witnesses say?” The Minos’s voice was thick with displeasure, tinged with the first tremors of dread.
Sammaro shook his head. “Forgive me, lord, but they could not agree from what direction the thunder originated. It was so loud, so pervasive, it might have come from anywhere.”
A lengthy silence followed. Then a senior advisor with graying hair ventured to comment, “Perhaps the priests in the Juktas sanctuary witnessed the phenomena.” Lord Kikkeros was the most sensible and levelheaded man at court, although Rusa admitted a particular bias, as the nobleman was also his father-in-law. “Let us send to them to inquire further.”
When the Minos did not respond, either to agree to or deny the suggestion, Sammaro seized the opportunity to express his sanctimonious outrage. “You would have us scurry like cowed children to the Labyrinth?”
“The Juktas sanctuary is not the Labyrinth,” Kikkeros coolly pointed out. “And this is hardly the time to dither over semantics and old grudges. Today’s strange thunder is but the latest in a growing number of omens. Clearly the gods are angry and—”
Sammaro bunched his bony hands into fists. “Do you presume to lecture me, a consecrated priest, about the gods?”
Kikkeros glared. “Clearly the gods are angry,” he repeated, raising his voice for emphasis, “and we have failed to understand why. Send to Juktas. Velchanos has been known to walk on that mountain. Perhaps he hurled a thunderbolt from the summit, from the sacred cleft there. What harm can it do to inquire, except to wound your pride?” He leveled an accusing finger toward the priest, though Rusa suspected the barb was also intended for the Minos.
Sammaro opened his mouth to retort when the Minos interrupted. “Enough. Your sniping makes my head hurt. Dadarusa, attend me. I will send a message to Head Priest Enarru.”
Rusa unrolled a sheet of papyrus across his lap, exchanged his stylus for an Egyptian-style reed brush, and moistened the cake of cuttlefish ink on his palette. He inscribed the salutation in a quick but precise hand, and awaited further instructions.
The message itself was not very long: “Hammuras, the royal Minos, asks Enarru, servant of the god, to examine and interpret this day’s omen of Velchanos.” Rusa used fine-grained sand from his writing box to blot the ink, and offered it up for the Minos’s inspection, after which Ankeros rolled up the papyrus, bound it with twine, and supplied the beeswax for the royal seal.
Ramparo the steward carried the scroll out to give to a runner. Then there was nothing left to do but wait the three or four hours it would take the messenger to return. Rusa and Ankeros were dismissed, but the Minos admonished them to remain close in case other messengers arrived.
Once they reached the archives, Ankeros confessed, “I cannot concentrate on my histories at a time like this.” He started searching the records, pulling down boxes of clay tablets, rolls of brittle papyri, and bits of ostraka that had somehow made their way into the collection. “There must be something here that can help. Perhaps from the time of Minos Khasanas and the great earthquake.” He blew the dust from a fragile-looking tablet, then coughed. “There must have been similar signs before the Great Bull unleashed his wrath.”
Rusa joined him in the search, though he wished Ankeros would be more systematic about removing documents. Everything would have to be put back afterward. “Earthquakes come without warning.”
“Oh, not so.” Ankeros expelled a small, final cough. “Some animals behave rather strangely in the days before Poteidan shakes the earth. My daughters all tell me their house snakes have retreated, fled. And my neighbor’s dog—an old thing, and quiet as can be—now barks at everything and nothing. So, yes, it has much to do, I think, with these mysterious rumblings.” He studied the topmost tablet with an air of dissatisfaction. “Look here, would you? A requisition for wine from the time of Minos Atarsha. I tell you, Dadarusa, we really have to clear these out.”
Not long into the search, one of the junior scribes checked in with his records. After inspecting them, Rusa sent the young man to the kitchen to fetch bread, cheese, and whatever fruit was available. “Bring enough for three people,” he added. “We have work for you. I assume the others have left?”
“Yes, sir. Ramparo collected their tablets and dismissed them.” Ensham blushed, confessing. “I was in the privy, sir.”
If that was true, then Ramparo had forgotten to turn the tablets over to them. “No harm done,” Rusa answered. “Now hurry up and go. We might be called back again into the audience chamber at any time.”
When the young man returned, laden with bread, goat’s cheese, and three apples, Rusa allowed him to eat before assigning him to a particularly dusty cupboard whose contents he could not quite recall. “These will be old records. We want any documents pertaining to portents, omens, special sacrifices. Be careful handling them, and keep them in order as you found them.”
Ensham nodded. “Is anyone checking the temple archives, sir?”
“The temple?” Ankeros exclaimed. “That’s the business of the priests. We have no jurisdiction there.”
Rusa reminded himself that the young man, only eighteen, had entered the royal household not three weeks ago, and was still learning the nuances of the various factions, rivalries, and networks of the court. “We would need a special dispensation to search the temple’s archives, and since the high priest and priestess probably have their own servants combing the records right now, we would no
t be permitted to intrude.”
Ensham dutifully lifted down a cobwebbed box of old diptyches. Dust clung to his striped robe, and he wiped the webs from his fingers with the hem of his long under tunic. “What’s in their records that needs special permission, anyway? We’re not just anybody, but servants of the Minos, and he’s a son and servant of the gods.”
“Hah! Listen to him!” Ankeros crowed. “There are records of sacred transactions between the gods and their servants, not to mention the revelations of oracles, powerful talismans, and other things not to be taken lightly by boys just out of scribal school. You remember this, boy, you... Ah, what’s this?” He held the document in his hand up to the clerestory window to get a better look. “Hmm, that’s odd. We’re facing south, and the light’s not as bright as it ought to be.”
Rusa had registered that fact, but had not thought to acknowledge the oddity until Ankeros commented on it. “Yes, strange. What have you discovered there?” He nodded toward the scroll.
Ankeros squinted, and shuffled back to his table with its greasy oil lamp. “It’s quite faded, but something about the hill before the temple, and the sanctuary that stood there, and omens that people remembered.” He fingered the ragged edges of the papyrus, frowning. “Something about Velchanos manifesting in a bolt of lightning where the northeast workshops stand now?”
“Would you like me to have a look at it?” Rusa was no stranger to perusing old documents on his colleague’s behalf.
The brown ink was so faded, so nearly indistinguishable from the yellowing papyrus, even he had to squint to make out the signs. “It looks like a collection of anecdotes, recipes, spells for healing and love. Yes, I see. There were houses on the hill before Daidalos constructed the first temple. That’s well known.” He turned his head, hoping another angle would help him decipher the next passage. “The Minos wanted the Labyrinth with its many sanctuaries built on the hill because Rhaya spoke to him in a dream, because the Great Bull had walked with Europa where the sanctuary of Poteidan now stands, because Velchanos had snatched a youth into the heavens.”
Having gleaned what he needed, Rusa relaxed his eyes. “There are no details beyond that, and I suspect this scroll is a copy of a copy of a much older record.” Papyrus did not survive as well in the Kaphti climate as it did in Egypt. “We know that Velchanos will sometimes seize the spirits of trees and people, but the witnesses always report seeing the lightning flash and the smelling burnt charcoal or flesh.”
“Hmm, you’re right,” Ankeros agreed. “I remember an incident in the countryside when I was young, and it was nothing like this. If Velchanos snatched a victim this morning, we would already know it.” He sighed. “However, only a priest with access to the secret knowledge of the Labyrinth could say with any certainty, and thus far...” He let his lapse suggest the natural conclusion of his thoughts.
Ensham, who had been quietly observing, and not getting much done in the meantime, ventured, “Do you think there’s anything worthwhile to find here, then, if all the pertinent knowledge is locked away in the temple?”
“I don’t know.” Rusa stared at the tablets piled on the junior scribe’s lap. “But idle hands accomplish nothing.”
By noon, however, he was beginning to agree with the young man. A collection of tallies, diplomatic correspondence, and personal letters, while fascinating, did not help the situation. He released Ensham at the usual time, as junior scribes were not expected to work after midday, and then insisted that Ankeros lay down and close his eyes for an hour. “Something tells me that we might have to stay late.” He knew he ought to send Dusani a message not to expect him till after dusk, and to find out how she, his father, and the children were faring. No doubt the thunder would have alarmed them.
Two narrow cots occupied the rear of the chamber. Rusa shifted aside the basket of tablets that Ensham had left, dusted off the thin woolen pallet, and helped Ankeros lie down. Then he took the other cot, stretched out fully dressed, with his arm flung over his eyes, and drifted into a light doze.
The next thing he knew, the room was shaking violently. A bin of tablets fell from a shelf, scattering and breaking. Scrolls spilled from cubbyholes to roll haphazardly across the floor. The cup Ankeros had left on his work table rattled, sloshing liquid onto fragile texts. Wide awake, Rusa scrabbled from his cot to shield a disoriented Ankeros with his body until the shaking subsided. He heard pottery crashing, the thud and scratch of furniture moving, and people screaming. He felt his heartbeat racing, and Ankeros clinging to him, and he braced himself against the moment when the stories above him would inevitably come crashing down. If Velchanos had ruled the morning, then without a doubt the Great Bull was stomping through the afternoon.
At last, after what seemed an eternity, the temblor ceased. Trembling all over, Rusa labored to get Ankeros to his feet and moving, despite his arthritis. Should he hoist the old scribe over his shoulder and carry him out? Ankeros probably weighed no more than Dusani, except her bones were not as brittle, and he had never picked her up during an earthquake. “Come on,” he urged. “We have to get out.”
Even as he spoke, the mansion shuddered again, one sizeable aftershock jolting into the next. Ankeros grunted, and, clinging to Rusa’s forearm for support, managed to maneuver himself to his feet.
Pulling Ankeros along with him, Rusa nudged aside loose scrolls and tablets, inadvertently grinding fragments into powder underfoot in his haste to reach the door. He cherished little remorse for those lost tallies. His heart pumped only with the primal need to reach safety, and with the even more instinctive fear—the very real possibility—of being crushed, buried alive, suffocated. His gut screamed at him to abandon Ankeros and dash for outside, to sling the old man over his shoulder like a sack of grain, to break his bones in the process if need be, but he could not. His will clashed with limbs that did not want to move except to curl whimpering into a ball under the work table and wait for rescue. Even if the mansion did not collapse, there was always the danger of fire, and already he swore he could smell something burning.
The next several moments were a blur. He kept moving, moving, hauling Ankeros behind him, and then they were in the outer courtyard, in the road among the other servants. People milled about everywhere. Smoke was rising from a nearby house. Rusa did not see anyone rushing to extinguish the blaze, or to rescue trapped victims in the pancaked building behind the house.
Was his family all right? Suddenly he felt weak at the knees, and had to hang onto Ankeros for support. “What do we do?” The Minos—if he was, in fact, still alive—had not granted him permission to go. He might yet be summoned to help tally the extent of the casualties, or the damage, or gods knew what else.
He managed to keep his head long enough to help Ankeros to the old women and children waiting under a stand of trees. “This is Master Scribe Ankeros, a distinguished servant of the Minos,” he told them. “Look after him.”
Then he ran down the road toward his father’s house as he had not run since his childhood.
Dusani was outside with a neighbor, assessing the exterior of the house for damage. When Rusa called her name, she turned and flung herself into his arms with a cry of relief. “Rusa! Thank the gods you’re all right.” She started examining him for injuries. “What’s happening? First thunder, then the ashes, and now this.”
“What ashes?”
Rusa then realized what he had overlooked in the confusion, or assumed to have originated with the fires burning nearby. Not only was the sky overcast, a peculiar shade of gray, but falling ash dusted the acrid-smelling air. “This has been going on all morning?”
She drew back from his arms. “You didn’t notice?”
“No, I’ve been in the archive.” And yet, Ankeros had commented earlier on the poor quality of the light coming through the clerestory window. Did the wrath of Velchanos have anything to do with the ashes falling from the sky, or were fire demons haunting the holy mountain of Kalliste to blame?
That was for the priests to determine, if they could. Right now, Rusa had more immediate concerns. “Are the children all right? Father?” Though shaken, Dusani seemed unhurt.
Dusani nodded. “They’re around back with Naptu and the servants. We were all downstairs and got out quickly.”
Nevertheless, Rusa had to see them for himself, to make certain. He hugged his daughters, ran his hands over their heads, arms, and torsos to check for broken bones, while Yikashata in his turn did the same. “Thank the gods, thank the gods,” his father said. “Was there much damage in the Minos’s house?”
“I don’t know,” Rusa confessed. “The archive’s a mess, scrolls and tablets fallen everywhere but I got Ankeros out, and—oh, I forgot my writing materials.” While his papyrus came from the Mino’s household stores, his palette, styli, and the expensive cedar box he kept them in had been a gift from his parents. Would he be able to go back inside the mansion to retrieve them?
And what of his own house? Rusa turned, craned his neck to appraise the condition of the house, and did not like the zigzag crack extending from the second story to the third. A structural failure meant the house would have to be abandoned, and the family would have to seek shelter elsewhere.
Isiratos had suffered only minor bruises, and baby Khasos, in a basket beside his grandfather, was cranky but uninjured. Rusa held him, so his wife should not have to worry about soothing a restive baby while she directed the servants. Dusani did not go inside, he noticed. She would not let the children venture near the house, and seemed to be weighing whether or not the servants themselves ought to be running back and forth.
“We’ll have to sleep outside tonight,” she told Rusa, shaking her head. “After that, I don’t know about living arrangements. Do you think your brother could have a look at that crack?”
