Knossos

by Laura Gill

  “The frescoes are unexpected, are they not?” Amunisa was nibbling on crisped tripe rolled in salt and basil, a Hellene delicacy. Umpara spied grilled octopus on skewers and seasoned olives on the Hekate priestess’s platter. The fact that secular nobles were viewing scenes of holy communion was at that moment secondary to the unseemly grumbling in her belly.

  “At least it is not more bulls,” Tanqara remarked slyly. “They are everywhere in the Labyrinth now. One might believe that that charlatan Kitanetos paid for the artists.” She directed her sultry gaze toward the opposite end of the chamber where the heretics were congregating, though the high priest of Poseidon had not yet arrived. Umpara dared not hope that Kitanetos would drop dead or meet an accident on the way and spare them all his tedious presence.

  Seated nearby, Head Priestess Korinsia of Pipituna commented, “The Hellenes admire bulls for their strength. And then they see the sacral horns crowning the Labyrinth and assume the Great Bull comes before all others.”

  Umpara shook her head, muttering. “Shameful.” She dared not say anything else, as several Hellene nobles and their wives sat within earshot. It rankled that they wore costlier raiment than she, despite how most of them had acquired their wealth. Alektryon and his followers carried out regular, predatory raids throughout other parts of Kaphtor and the neighboring islands, pillaging and razing ancient sanctuaries, and subduing any possible opposition. Umpara had heard tales of priestesses being raped, butchered at their altars, even sold into bondage overseas. Why the gods failed to punish the blasphemers, she could not fathom. Minos Alektryon had admitted that there were raids, but the women seized were heretics who had profaned the old holy places. Whatever horrors Kitanetos’s faction had reported, he assured her, they were grossly exaggerated.

  As her food arrived, Umpara forced herself to wait, to observe the proprieties before sampling the first morsel. Alektryon could afford the finest cooks in Knossos. The almond cakes were flavorful but not too sickly-sweet, exactly as she liked them, and the soft white cheese melted in her mouth. It had been too long since Umpara had been able to furnish a similarly excellent table.

  Amunisa leaned over and said, “You still owe me for the fourteen jars of oil I lent you eight months ago.”

  There it was, more talk of debt. Umpara’s ears ached from the subject. “I told you I would repay you after the harvest.”

  “You had better, Umpara.” At least Amunisa had the decency to keep her voice down. “It was not a donation to the Mistress of the Labyrinth, but a personal loan to you.”

  “After the harvest,” Umpara repeated firmly. Amunisa tended to fixate on certain matters and then harp incessantly on them. “But today is not a day for quibbling about donations and loans.”

  Amunisa lifted a morsel of crisped tripe to her lips. “I just told you it was not a donation.”

  “Yes, yes, I remember.” Sometimes Umpara was able to manipulate the particularly gullible and devout into canceling her debts, making them into gifts for the upkeep of the Labyrinth, but though Amunisa was not very bright, she was nonetheless infuriatingly mule-headed. “Priest-Scribe Rabbel recorded it as a loan. You yourself have a copy of the tablet. Now, please, let us enjoy the feast.”

  Tanqara rescued her from the quagmire of Amunisa’s loan-fixation with a timely comment. “We missed you earlier when the Minos arrived in his chariot. Really, no one has ever seen the like.”

  Umpara frowned. “The chariot, you mean, or Alektryon parading around in that ridiculously ill-fitting codpiece?”

  “At least he fills it well.” Hooding her kohl-rimmed eyes, Tanqara curved her bow-shaped lips into a smile and cast a suggestive glance at the royal seat. She often flirted with Alektryon right under his wife’s hawkish nose. While Tanqara had bedded other Hellenes, Umpara doubted that the younger woman had actually managed to entice the usurper into her bed, otherwise by now the entire Labyrinth would have heard the story as well as her enthusiastic moans.

  “What do you see in him, anyway?” Umpara grumbled. “He and his ilk lack all refinement.”

  “Have you not noticed how short Hellene men wear their hemlines, and how shapely their calves are? And should they bend over too far, why, then you can see practically everything. You should try one in bed. Given the proper schooling, they can be quite vigorous.” Tanqara licked her lips lasciviously. She had always had execrable taste in lovers.

  A triton blew. The herald announced, “Most High Servant of the Earth-Shaker and Mighty Bull, High Priest Kitanetos!”

  Making a face, Amunisa pushed aside her plate of delicacies. “My appetite is quite gone.”

  Umpara did not welcome his arrival, either, yet part of her relished Kitanetos’s threadbare estate. He sported a misshapen polos headdress, faded vestments, and moth-eaten fringe. The sole of his left sandal flapped with his every stride, because her servants had tampered with the leather stitching. A childish prank, to be sure, but he deserved such retribution and more on account of his perverting the Serpent Dance by killing her holy messengers. Tanqara had been devastated, for she had raised many of those snakes herself. Together, Umpara and the Ashera priestess had cursed Kitanetos. Now they trusted in the goddess’s discretion to bring the curse to fruition.

  Kitanetos was red-faced and breathless. Umpara smothered the compulsion to laugh when she pictured him hobbling on his spindly, knock-kneed legs to reach the Labyrinth. After receiving Alektryon’s welcome, he accepted a seat among his cronies, chief among whom were Head Priestess Malea of Terasia and Head Priest Piyasema of Velchanos-Diwios.

  Alektryon remained standing in order to address the gathering. “Kinsmen, friends, servants of the temple, thank you for coming. Let us honor the gods of Knossos.” Lady Karpathia brought the bull-headed rhyton, an elegant thing of steatite and gilt. Umpara anticipated the first libation with intense interest. Not knowing how the Minos honored the immortals in his own house, she wondered whether he would honor Mother Rhaya before all others, as was proper, or show his heretical leanings. Tanqara, too, was watching him, and Korinsia. Amunisa was oblivious, dipping her fingers in her finger-bowl to wash away the crisped tripe dust. Across the chamber, Kitanetos appeared confident as a servant offered him wine. His cronies alternated between looks of dour boredom and studied nonchalance. The retainers, nobles, and local magistrates who profited from the desecration of the lesser sanctuaries, Umpara dismissed.

  Raising the rhyton, Alektryon splashed wine into the channel designed to receive libations. “To Rhaya, Great Mother and Potnia of the Labyrinth, hearken as we present the gift of the grape. Bless our harvest. Bless our mothers and children.” Gods above! Umpara smothered an exclamation of disbelief. The heretic Minos had observed the correct form, elevated the goddess to her proper place.

  Her elation was short-lived, however. Next, Alektryon turned to his heretical gods. “Diwios of the Heavens, Father of the Gods, Thunder Lord, you who are also known as Velchanos, Master of Beasts, receive this libation of wine. Observe the keeping of our oaths, and the protection of our guests. Poseidon, Father of the Ocean, Great Bull, Lord of Horses, receive this libation of wine. Bless the sea’s foaming lanes for those who must cross your domain. Bless the Labyrinth and its altars.” For each deity, the Minos tipped the rhyton to release dark liquid into the channel.

  Was he mad? Allowing foreign Poseidon to usurp the Labyrinth from Rhaya, and the ocean from Marineus? Raising his sky god Diwios above the Great Bull, while mentioning Velchanos as little more than an afterthought? Umpara clenched her jaw. Members of the heretical faction observed intently, although Kitanetos seemed to be more absorbed in feeding himself than in honoring the Hellene gods. Just a few moments ago, she had spied him filching sweetmeats, stuffing them into his robe. How cheap and ill-mannered was that, filling one’s larder by stealing from a host’s table! Pathetic. If the high priest served Poteidan with equal parts disinterest, Umpara reflected, then it was a wonder that the Earth-Shaker had not yet leveled the Labyrinth.

&
nbsp; Alektryon next thanked Diwia, the sky-dwelling consort of Diwios, dread Therasia—a corruption of the name “Terasia,”—and a demigod, the thrice-honored champion Triskheros. Now there was an aspect of Hellene worship Umpara found confusing. When the gods—especially Diwios with his insatiable carnal appetite—coupled with mortal women, their semi-divine male offspring became heroes, blessed beyond ordinary mortal men with strength, prowess in battle, and extraordinary virility, attributes prized by the Hellene fighting elite.

  Umpara had not been impressed by the hero tales she heard, mostly because the men they celebrated excelled in bloodshed and boorish behavior to the exclusion of all else. Where, she wondered, were the gifted female offspring? What were their deeds? The Hellene women laughed when she voiced her question, though she could not see why, because she could not picture any of them being relegated to the background as damsels in distress, like the long-suffering, often nameless mothers, wives, and daughters of the tales. Why did they, who worshipped a goddess of battle, need heroes when they could have slain their oppressors themselves? There must be something she as a Kaphti woman could not perceive, some mystery of the Hellene character that eluded her.

  By the time Umpara finished ruminating, Alektryon had concluded the libation. Karpathia called for the servants to refill everyone’s cups and bring more food. When she assumed the servants were ignoring her commands, she whistled and snapped her fingers at them.

  “You’d think she was hawking trinkets in the marketplace,” Tanqara murmured, but Umpara was too agitated to find her observation amusing. The Labyrinth was traditionally a locus of Kaphti worship and culture. A microcosm of Kaphtor as a whole, now warped, perverted into a symbol of Hellene usurpation. Umpara had suspected the change from the moment she noticed the prevalence of bull decorations. Where were the depictions of priestesses, the familiar scenes of goddess-adoration? The artists Priest-Architect Daida had hired to render the frescoes and plaster reliefs possessed no awareness of aesthetics or movement.

  A black-bearded nobleman’s comment about the restoration suddenly caught her attention. “Minos, we commend you and your architects for what you have already accomplished with the Labyrinth. Yet we have noticed scaffolding elsewhere. Care to share thoughts about the next project?” He nodded toward the men sitting around him, Hellene officials who had donated materials and laborers to Alektryon for the restoration. Umpara despised them, every one.

  Alektryon, who was savoring grilled lamb off a skewer, swiped the back of his hand across his greasy mouth, and answered, “The chamber downstairs where we petition the gods every nine years.” Taking the linen cloth his wife shoved into his hand, he made a fumbling attempt to correct his crude manners, but somehow he managed to appear even more boorish. “Unfortunately, that set of rooms has fallen into disrepair, but we are resolved to see them restored to its former splendor before our next encounter with the gods.”

  Someone to the left noisily cleared their throat, then to Umpara’s dismay Kitanetos opened his mouth. “Pardon, Minos, but my priests have not had access to the sanctuary of Poseidon for several weeks. We assumed the restoration would be completed before the inauguration.”

  Alektryon raised his thick brows as though the question surprised him. “And so it is finished. The brand-new sanctuary to the southwest serves the Great Bull and Earth-Shaker. Were you not told, High Priest?”

  Kitanetos’s astonishment was comical. “Minos,” he stammered, “the traditional sanctuary has always been below Mother Rhaya’s, always in the eastern quarter of the Labyrinth.”

  “Where it is always dim and musty,” Alektryon countered. “We are told that the lowermost level floods in winter because the drainage is inadequate. Why would Poseidon desire to be worshipped in such unfavorable conditions?”

  “That is his home, Minos!” Kitanetos’s cheeks flushed bright red. “It has been his sanctuary since the time of Daidalos.”

  “No, that would be the home of Poteidan,” Tanqara pointed out, in a tone of sweet malice. “The master you serve is Poseidon, High Priest, though I suppose a heretic might be misled into confusing the two.”

  Uneasy muttering arose from both factions. The tension in the atmosphere increased. Noblemen, magistrates, and their wives exchanged uncomfortable glances.

  Piyasema cleared his throat. He was a dignified man who would have been a genuine asset to the Labyrinth had he not been tainted by his heretical associations. “Forgive me, Lady Tanqara, but is there any difference between the two? Both are the Great Bull, both are the Earth-Shaker. All I see is a change in the spelling of the god’s name, strictly a matter of semantics.”

  “Is that all?” Tanqara poured on the sarcasm. Umpara noted that she had been more lenient toward the heretics before her sanctuary and snakes were desecrated. “Marineus has dominion over the sea, as all devout Kaphti know.” More muttering, this time from the noblemen and magistrates. Alektryon glowered, but, curiously, made no effort to curb the discord.

  “Marineus turned his back on us years ago when Kalliste was destroyed,” a woman seated among the heretics asserted.

  Piyasema raised a hand for silence. “Priestess Tanqara,” he said placidly, reasonably, “has it ever occurred to you that perhaps the old Marineus wants us to worship him as Poseidon?”

  “Then where are your oracles?” Umpara asked. “Where is the voice of the god requesting these things?” The chamber was growing close and stale. She had visited with Tanqara and Amunisa, she had eaten and drunk, had complimented the Minos on the decorations, and now she found the gathering tedious. An afternoon nap with a cool compress over her eyes would be just the thing.

  Kitanetos interjected, “Poseidon has spoken to us many times, but you and your likeminded cronies insist on ignoring those signs.” Sitting up straighter, he pressed one hand over his heart. “If you must know, I myself have communed with Poseidon on several occasions, and—”

  Umpara burst out laughing, despite the inelegance of the gesture. “Oh, you have? Then why are we just now hearing about this?”

  “High Priestess, let us not exacerbate the matter,” Alektryon warned. “If High Priest Kitanetos says he has communicated with the gods, then we must assume he has. In fact, we would expect no less from a priest of his standing, just as we would expect no less from a priestess of yours.”

  “Yes, indeed, Minos.” Smiling, anticipating a victory, she nodded toward her rival. “Well, High Priest Kitanetos. You made the claim that you have communed with Poseidon. Now tell us all about it.”

  *~*~*~*

  Kitanetos stiffened against the back of his chair. How dare that contemptible bitch question his word in public! “Your tone offends, High Priestess. You imply that we are falsifying our visions and signs, when, by my faith, we have never, ever played you or the immortal gods false.”

  He had spent many an hour reflecting in the old sanctuary, but it was difficult to remember specific visitations. Poseidon communicated through the rumblings of the earth, through the snorting and bloodshed of bulls, not through the fumes of the poppy that the priestesses imbibed. But he had dreamed. How could he not have? Old men slept more frequently, mimicking the eternal repose, and they dreamed.

  “I have heard his voice in the moves of the Bull Dance, in the toss of horns and the gracefulness of the bull dancers. I have heard him in the play of sunlight across the hills.” Kitanetos grasped at whatever his jumbled recollections yielded. “I have dreamt of a god wearing animal skins and the horns of a bull. I have seen him striding across the sea’s lanes from the east to consecrate this hill. I have dreamt of the young god, too, of holy Velchanos-Diwios standing under a cypress tree, then vanishing in a white-hot flash of lightning, and a woman’s barren womb quickening with—”

  “An old man’s fantasies.” Insolent woman! The high priestess of Knossos Umpara might be, yet why did Alektryon permit her to disrupt the feast with her uncouth remarks? Kitanetos had sensed the Minos’s growing disapproval with Umpara’s uppity
, hidebound behavior and that of her cohorts, and he anticipated with relish the Minos giving her a well-deserved dressing-down, but alas, Alektryon was tolerating her audacity when his views on vulgar women were well known. Why did he not say something to curb her impertinence? Something was wrong with the scene—very wrong—if only Kitanetos could grasp what that something was.

  “There are records of my visions,” he answered irritably, seeing then that his cup was empty. Had he drunk all his wine so soon? “I never question your poppy visions, High Priestess.”

  “Because they are genuine and goddess-granted.” Umpara’s nostrils flared. “The Labyrinth has no room for heretics.”

  Alektryon was going to allow this? Kitanetos cast a questioning glance toward the throne, without success. The Minos was absorbed, as if the proceedings were a form of entertainment like tumbling acrobats or bards singing. Kitanetos flushed angrily over the thought. “Please!” he scoffed. “You speak of heretics and goddess-blessings when you have bankrupted the Labyrinth?”

  “Be quiet, old man!” Umpara hissed. “You have no idea what I have sacrificed to maintain the Labyrinth. I have taken nothing for myself. Nothing!” She appealed with outstretched arms to the Minos and nobles. Kitanetos rolled his eyes at her theatrics. “These few jewels I wear are all I have left. Everything else has gone to the upkeep of the Labyrinth. All I have done, all my life’s work, has been for the glorification and appeasement of the immortal gods.”

  “But only the gods you acknowledge,” Piyasema said. “Gods who turned on us generations ago, and whose power has faded.” His elaborately coifed curls moved with his shake of the head. “You call us heretics. I do not think you know the meaning of the word. You want to know a true heretic? When I was a boy, when my brothers and I misbehaved, our grandfather frightened us into obedience with stories of a fanatical priest of Poseidon with a horribly burned face. This man terrorized Knossos in the years just after the destruction of Kalliste.” Kitanetos nodded agreement. His own grandfather had told the same tales. “He committed unspeakable crimes, outrages against the dead, and incited riots. Do you seriously equate the high priest or any of us with that blasphemer?”