by Laura Gill
Was it too late, he wondered, to take his family to the safety of Knossos where Rusa might be able to protect them? Last night, he had sensed that while Rusa and his wife would welcome Amanas’s mother for an extended visit, they were not so enthusiastic about the prospect of being burdened with an entire family. And what about Asterion’s sailors, housed near the beach? A captain did not simply abandon his men.
He was not yet desperate enough to test the limits of Rusa’s hospitality. If nothing else, he still had his pride and his ship. If only Marineus would give him the opportunity, he could sail west, away from this chaos.
Fleeing to Knossos would be an option of terminal resort, and then strictly for his dependent mother, wife, and younger children. Amanas could not impose further on Rusa, because they had not discussed the subject of the ship’s crew, and Rusa owed them no obligation; it was enough—indeed, more than generous—that he had instructed his agent to provide extra rations at a fair price. Amanas himself would remain behind, no matter what threatened. Asterion was all that remained of his inheritance. The gods themselves would have to strike him dead before he surrendered it.
“Arwia,” he ordered, “dampen the fire. Kyaton, Obodan, shutter the windows. Shove rags in the crevices if you have to. Let them think the house is abandoned. As for the rest of you, you’re to be absolutely quiet. No talking, no whispering, crying, no sound at all.” He emphasized that for his mother’s sake, and Hammaso’s, knowing that the boy was the most garrulous of the lot. “Our lives might depend on our silence.”
Everyone lay down or crouched in the corners of the dimmed main room, and time started to drag. Amanas kept his ears open for signs that the mob was heading their way. Because mobs never moved silently, but announced their coming with a crash and a fury, he counted on some advance warning. They lived in a Katsamban neighborhood, among people who remembered him and his mother from thirty years ago, although that was no guarantee they would not be caught up in the frenzy and betray their neighbors.
Suddenly, the house jolted violently around him. Plaster cracked, raining down in fragments. The shutters tore open and banged back and forth. Arwia and the girls screamed. Amanas bent double on his knees, covered his head, and waited for the shaking to stop.
Once the initial shock subsided, Amanas had just enough time to raise his head and appraise the damage before a succession of strong aftershocks hit. He saw Obodan bracing himself against a wooden post, and his mother, clutching a goddess-amulet, curled in a fetal position beside the dead hearth.
“Husband,” Arwia groaned. She was shielding their youngest daughter with her body, and hugging the others to her sides like a mother bird spreading her wings over her nestlings. “What do we do?”
He wished she had not asked and simply kept her mouth shut, because to his consternation he could not decide on a course of action. Should they rush out and face a murderous mob, or stay hidden, trust in the integrity of the structure, and brave the Earth-Shaker’s anger?
Kyaton managed to secure the shutters. Once the rumbling ceased, Amanas resumed listening for the telltale sounds of a mob advancing down the road, instead hearing panicked cries for help and prayers to the Great Bull to have pity, and the crash of falling masonry. Typical noises during the hours after a large temblor. Amanas, however, remained wary. Sooner or later, once they saw to their own safety, the townspeople would remember that morning’s thunderous portents, take into consideration the quake and their own losses, and search out fresh scapegoats.
A sudden knock at the door reinforced that fear. “Arwia! Elissa!” a man’s voice shouted. “Are you all right?” Another knock, more urgent this time. “Is anyone trapped in there?”
Amanas recognized the voice of their neighbor, a man who sometimes brought extra food. He waved his mother and wife silent. Adikira probably meant well, but Amanas could not be certain that hostile townspeople, seeking Kallistean victims, had not sent the man to lure them out. Better to let him believe that they had abandoned the house that morning.
A heavy thump against the door, and then another, brought Amanas up short. Gods, no, the fool! Adikira was putting his weight behind his attempt to force a way in. Amanas mouthed a prayer to merciful Mother Rhaya that circumstances would not force him to cut the man’s throat.
Motioning to his sons to take positions on either side of the door, he waited for his neighbor to stumble through. Kyaton and Obodan seized Adikira from both sides before he recovered his breath, jammed him up against the wall, and pressed their blades to his fleshy throat.
Adikira’s face registered genuine alarm. “What’s this?”
Amanas poked his head outside for the fraction of a second it took to ascertain that Adikira did not have a mob at his back. “We’ve heard refugees are being killed in the marketplace.”
“What? Refugees being killed?” Dazed, Adikira blinked. “Not that I know. Some neighbors arguing over the cost of tuna, I heard. The magistrate’s men stopped the violence before it could turn into a riot.” He shakily sucked in a breath. “Good gods, Amanas, what did you think was happening?”
“A woman was murdered, and the two men who tried to help her beaten to death and strung up as scapegoats to placate Velchanos,” Obodan answered hotly. “It’s not the first time Kallisteans have been killed around here.”
Amanas held up a hand to forestall his son’s aggressiveness. “Hold your tongue.”
Adikira rubbed his throat where Kyaton had drawn a bead of blood. “My own boy witnessed the whole thing, and he doesn’t lie.”
“You’re certain?” Amanas gave him the cloth his mother, having recovered her composure, shoved into his hand. Ormennos was repeating wild tales, then. “There are no scapegoats being killed in the marketplace?”
“Scapegoats?” Adikira accepted the cloth to wipe his bloodstained fingers with. “They’re still trying to capture sheep and goats for the altar. I saw two priests not a few moments before the earth shook chasing a ram around Osta’s enclosure.” His cut stanched, Adikira returned the cloth with an apologetic look. “Listen, you shouldn’t stay indoors. Amphiaros’s house fell down, fires are burning, and everyone’s afraid Poteidan’s wrath will strike again.”
From the threshold, Amanas noticed the smoke. Already, the air was unwholesome, reeking of burnt cinders, and when he held out his hand motes of grayish ash landed on his upturned palm.
Adikira interjected, “Say, I’m taking my family over to Diripadu’s house. He has a courtyard above the smoke. It should be safe enough from the shaking.” He spoke quickly, eager to appease. “You’re welcome to come with us.”
Amanas seriously doubted whether this Diripadu, whom he did not know, would appreciate being burdened with a family of nine strangers, but his options were dwindling. Although Aridmos was willing to barter for goods and rent, he had, unbeknownst to Rusa, already made it plain that he had no room at his hearth should Amanas find his current accommodations unsuitable; his wife was worse, trying to foist second-rate goods and barely edible rations off on the family. Amanas had had to take the precaution of bringing the intimidating Big Glaukos and savage-looking Titiku with him whenever he bartered, as a reminder that he was not a helpless beggar.
Taking his family to the house the sailors occupied was not an option. Theirs was a rough neighborhood, and getting there meant going across town. If violence broke out, the waterfront was no place to be. He would have to take his chances with this Diripadu, or with returning to Knossos.
“Gather everything,” he said over his shoulder, addressing his wife, mother, and daughters. “Clothes, valuables, food. We’re leaving.”
As he suspected, Diripadu, who owned a vineyard and wine press south of the town, expressed reservations about receiving so many strangers, until Adikira opened his mouth regarding Amanas’s relations in Knossos. “You could make worse friends, Diripadu,” he chuckled. “Captain Amanas here has connections to the court of the Minos. His cousin is Hammuras’s personal scribe. Another c
ousin’s a priest-architect of Daidalos in the great temple.”
Diripadu raised a questioning eyebrow. He was a spare, sun-browned old man with an aura of miserliness about him. “Is that so?”
Amanas saw his advantage and pressed it. “Yes. Master Scribe Dadarusa serves the Minos, and Priest-Architect Didanam is in the service of High Priest Selukkos.” His other cousin’s credentials as a master mason were not, he sensed, something that would impress Diripadu. “By the way, you’ve a fine looking vineyard.” Amanas flattered his host while appraising the view from behind the courtyard. “Do you export your wines?” Not that Diripadu’s vineyard was large enough to supply anything beyond his own table, but Amanas sensed a need to employ his silver tongue.
Diripadu relented, even inviting Amanas to play a game of draughts. He showed no interest in exporting his modest vintage, which he had brought up from his storeroom for Amanas to sample while pressing him about his tenuous connections to the Minos’s court. “Your kinsman is the Minos’s personal scribe? Master Scribe Dadarusa has contacts here. When was the last time you saw him?”
“This morning, when I left his house in Knossos.” Amanas had no heart for the conversation his host desired. He stared at the elaborate draught board before him without focusing, and as his thoughts kept straying to Asterion and her crew, his sense of foreboding increased.
“Had I but known,” Diripadu was saying, “I would have sent along a gift of wine. Dadarusa has not had the opportunity to try my latest vintage. He has a superb palate. His recommendation to the Minos would ensure a glorious new opportunity for the wines of this house.”
Judging by the swill in his cup, Amanas doubted Rusa would even deign to use Diripadu’s wine to wash his children’s scrapes with. And if Rusa had ever heard the name Diripadu, he certainly knew better than to place an amphora of the man’s piss-water on the Minos’s table.
Amanas found himself self-consciously rubbing the labrys tattoo inked over the pulse point of his wrist. The threads of conversation spinning around him did nothing to ease his apprehensions.
“If the priests are serious about offering blood sacrifices to Velchanos and the Great Bull,” one man grumbled, “then they need to stop dithering about and get somebody into the pens who can actually handle animals. Balamartu’s fumbling and falling on his face might be good for a laugh, but when do the immortals ever laugh?”
Amanas dismissed queries from his sons, who no doubt recognized the source of their father’s anxiety, while doing his best to banish his reservations. No collapsed or burning buildings threatened Asterion. The only danger the ship faced was from humans bearing a grudge—or from the sea.
He stood abruptly, rousing an exclamation of surprise from Diripadu. “What’s the matter, Captain? It’s your turn.” The man gestured to the draught board, with its expensive ebony and ivory counters.
Amanas only half-heard him. Sometimes when Poteidan shook the earth, Marineus became agitated, and in his annoyance cast violent waves upon the shore. Amanas had witnessed the aftermath of such an outburst on the west coast of Kalliste after the Great Bull rattled houses all across the island. The fishermen who lived there had vanished with their houses, boats, families—all trace of them was gone, except for the debris that later washed ashore. More recently, evidence of the sea god’s wrath in Minoa Phylakopi had prompted Amanas to evacuate with his family to Katsamba, and he had heard from other refugees of similar occurrences on nearby islands.
“My ship,” he mumbled. “I must see to her.”
Kyaton at once took his arm. “I can go, Father. You’re needed here.” With a meaningful nod, he indicated his mother, grandmother, and siblings.
Yet again, Amanas found himself torn. He took his firstborn’s measure. Kyaton possessed the makings of an excellent future captain, except he had never been tested so, and now was not a time for failure. “Do you know what to do?”
Kyaton replied without hesitation, “Haul Asterion to higher ground if the sea rises. Defend her to the death if she’s attacked.”
Those were the correct answers, delivered with the right amount of confidence, but Amanas vacillated. His men would follow Kyaton’s instructions, knowing they came from Amanas, but should unforeseen crisis threaten, would the eighteen-year-old be ready to improvise?
“Father?” A strain of impatience laced the young man’s question.
Amanas made the decision. “Go.” With a swift, fierce embrace, he then sent his firstborn on his way. He avoided acknowledging Arwia’s worry, because it meant hurried explanations and solicitudes that no longer sufficed. She was a gently-bred woman, eldest daughter of his father’s business partner, and was better suited to arranging entertainments and staining her nails with henna than living rough. He had asked much of her, starting with persuading her to abandon their house in Terasos. She had surrendered her jewels, precious vessels and perfumed oils to provide food and lodgings. She had learned to cook, patch clothing, fish, and nurse sick sailors, and it was a credit to her breeding that she rarely complained. Her once-elegant nails were bitten to the quick, her soft skin wind-and-sun weathered and cracked, and her hair threaded with premature gray. Had she been another woman, one of the many whose charms Amanas had enjoyed elsewhere, he would have reassured her with falsehoods.
He tried to smile for her sake, but failed to elicit the desired reaction. Arwia’s eyes narrowed. Chastened, Amanas forced himself to resume his place at the draught board across from Diripadu.
He lost the game, to his host’s exasperation. “I thought men of the sea were superb gamblers,” Diripadu observed petulantly.
“We were not playing for stakes,” Amanas said. Did the small-minded fool not comprehend his guest’s distraction? What did Amanas care about moving his pieces when Asterion, his son, and crew might be facing mortal danger? “And I fear that my mind is elsewhere.” He caught Obodan’s attention. The fifteen-year-old was an excellent gambler, much to his mother’s dismay. “Why not try a game with my son?” Diripadu’s expression started to fall as Obodan stepped forward, while Amanas quickly added, “Don’t let his tender years fool you. He will strip you naked, given half the chance.”
Relieved of his obligations at the draught board, he paced back and forth, waiting for news. As the courtyard faced south, framing distant Mount Juktas between the posts of a decorative grape arbor, with no view of the town, Amanas had no way to know what was happening. Smoke still obscured the afternoon sky, and his nose told him the post-temblor blazes were still burning. Diripadu had not given him or anyone permission to ascend to the house’s roof because, as he claimed, the servants had not yet finished assessing the quake damage.
At last, unable to stand the tension any longer, Amanas excused himself and walked around to the house’s front, noting that the only visible damage was where cracked plaster exposed the mudbrick underneath.
Amanas had just attained the head of the road overlooking the town when he found himself confronted by swarms of townspeople coming straight for him. That morning’s heightened fears remained strong enough that he drew his sword, and was about to turn for shelter when he realized the anticipated mob was no mob, but a ragtag collection of men, women, and children racing, stumbling up the road, and clutching their whatever possessions they could carry. Many kept looking behind them as if expecting pursuit. What were they running from? Amanas knew it could not be fire, as most of the town appeared unaffected. Then he knew.
Sheathing his sword just as the first wave of refugees crowded past him, he stopped a harried-looking old man. “Is it the sea?”
“The waters are rising.” The man’s gaze focused on a point beyond him—the high ground above the vineyards. “The streets are flooding. Better get moving.”
Amanas released him. The skirts of the women were soaked, and many townspeople were damp through and through. Most carried nothing more than a spindle and yarn, a household idol, a blanket—whatever objects they had been able to reach before the wrath of Marine
us surged into their homes. They would have few valuables, and precious little sustenance.
Weaving through the crowds, he searched for his son, his crewmen, anyone he recognized, but the chaotic scene impeded his efforts. He switched to a different tactic, hastening back to the courtyard where he found Diripadu instructing his steward to keep the displaced people out of his vineyards.
Amanas interrupted, “Let me onto your roof. The flood’s coming fast. You’ll need advance warning.” He knew precisely what excuse to give, after having observed his host. Diripadu welcomed those who could provide favors.
It surprised Amanas, therefore, when the man proved reluctant. “The house could be unstable.”
“If your servants are willingly going in and out, then there’s no danger.” Amanas understood now. Diripadu did not want a stranger inside his house pawing among his possessions. “You have no idea how quickly and savagely the wrath of Marineus can strike. Just ask your neighbors how much they were able to save from their homes before they had to flee.”
That did the trick. Diripadu changed his mind about the vineyard, and ordered the steward to usher Amanas onto the roof. “Make sure you stay with our guest,” he added. “If Poteidan in his anger shakes the earth again, Captain Amanas may need your help getting to safety.”
Amanas mused mirthlessly as the steward led him away. The gods reserved a special punishment for those who failed to acknowledge the sacred spirit imbued in the laws of hospitality.
What he saw from the roof of the three-story house banished from his mind all ruminations of Diripadu’s stinginess. By now, he knew the harbor well enough to recognize what should have been there and was not. A mile distant, seawater was pouring into the waterfront district to engulf what had been storehouses, sailors’ hovels, the fish market, the custom offices. The flood surged onward, funneling waist-high through the narrow lanes, carrying with it boulders, uprooted trees, furniture, and chunks of buildings. There might even have been bodies tangled in that debris, but Amanas could not be certain, and refused to speculate on that macabre possibility while his son and crew were still unaccounted-for.
