Knossos

by Laura Gill

  “I very much doubt that.” The priestesses in the sanctuaries he had sacked had vowed that, too, before he and his men had ravaged them, and nothing had come of their curses. Kaphtor’s ancient gods could not withstand the potency of the Hellene immortals, just as Alektryon had anticipated. “Let me put this in simple terms, Lady Umpara. You are expendable. You have many enemies. Now, I can have you eliminated as effortlessly as Kitanetos, with a blow to the head, and no one will raise an eyebrow. Or I can simply banish you to a place where you exercise no power. Thus, you are here.” He spread his hands to encompass the chamber. “Whichever way, there will be no more desecration of Diwios’s sanctuaries on Mount Dikte, no more midnight killings and persecutions. Furthermore, my agents will administer the Labyrinth’s accounts and return it to solvency. Submit, and you will be allowed to perform the daily offices in the Rhaya sanctuary. Defy me, and, well, you will see.”

  Her curses followed him from the hall back to the staircase, where trusted sentries assumed watch. “You will answer for this, Alektryon! Mother Rhaya will undo your wickedness, your heresies!” Her voice mimicked the screeching of an owl as it echoed throughout the corridors and light-wells. “She will avenge this outrage. Mark my words. She will...”

  Alektryon ignored her. Let her break a few cups and vessels, and harangue her handmaidens, and she would come around as most women did. In the meantime, he was triumphant. Not since that morning four years ago when he had personally slit Minos Narramo’s throat and declared himself Minos had he felt so sublimely powerful. First thing tomorrow, he must make a thanksgiving offering to Diwios and the other gods. For now, he simply wanted to rid himself of his chafing priest-king’s codpiece and spend a pleasant night between the Egyptian girl’s thighs. Once the next day dawned with no threat of further incidents, he would truly be able to relax.

  Outside, the long afternoon was westering, the shadows purpling and lengthening, promising a languorous summer twilight. Smoke hazed the air, though the lack of breeze had prevented the fire from spreading beyond the high priestess’s house.

  His retainers rejoined him on the steps leading to the central courtyard. Arisbas, his captain, informed him that his guests had departed for home in his absence. “There was conversation, Wanax.” He made a sound in his throat. “Not all good.”

  “As expected, then.” The nobles and magistrates would shake their heads in bewilderment, and the priests cry blasphemy over the demonstration of armed force in the Labyrinth. Alektryon was not concerned over either, for his agents were already abroad spreading tales of the fire and the high priest’s most sudden death. Favoring the Minos, the immortals had visited judgment upon the priesthood for their discord. All those who craved position and divine preference would follow the path the gods had determined, and support Alektryon.

  Malachos would do nicely as the next high priest, never mind that Alektryon’s scribes, better versed in the prohibitions and allowances of the Labyrinth, argued that bull priests were not eligible to inherit the position; when pressed to discover some explanation for the statute, they could not find one. High Priest of Poseidon Malachos it would be, then. Kitanetos’s heirs, of course, would object. Best to remove them from Knossos. Several neighboring sanctuaries needed priests, as did a number of remote ones, if Kitanetos’s kin insisted on creating difficulties.

  Umpara’s eldest daughter could serve in the Rhaya sanctuary until such time as her mother learned compliance. Alektryon’s occasional interactions with the woman, plus his agents’ reports, told him that Lady Sarmatia, already cowed by her mother’s overbearing personality, did not possess the backbone to defy him. Sarmatia was not a very bright woman, besides.

  Upon arriving home in the mansion his father had built in the old Hellene quarter, Alektryon realized he had an angry spouse to contend with. The moment he dismissed his retainers and climbed upstairs to undress, Karpathia, dogging his every step, unleashed her tongue.

  “What under the Great Goddess’s gaze are you thinking?” Karpathia still wore her finery, but she had removed her diadem, and her hair was disarranged, curls hanging askew. “Setting fire to the high priestess’s mansion? Your younger brother assaulting High Priest Kitanetos?” She swiped the washcloth from him before he could sponge his face. “Have you gone mad?”

  So she had seen Andronikos strike Kitanetos. An observant woman, his Karpathia. Alektryon shrugged both shoulders as he loosened the ties fastening the accursed codpiece. What a relief to be rid of the garment! “Now, who’s been saying that I set fire to the high priestess’s house?”

  “Save your lies for the petitioners, Husband. I have it on good authority that Priest-Architect Daida was absent from today’s feast because you commanded him to set fire to Umpara’s mansion.”

  Her gesticulations with the dripping cloth irritated him, as did her accusatory tone. Alektryon snatched the cloth from her, dabbed the raw spots of his inner thigh while she impatiently awaited his answer. “I have cut the heads from both factions,” he said calmly. “After today, there will be no more petty squabbling and no more incompetence in the administration of the Labyrinth.”

  “So you did set the fire, and you did order Andronikos to kill Kitanetos,” Karpathia hissed. “Have you killed the high priestess, too? Do you understand nothing, Alektryon? Executing the old Minos and his heirs was one thing, but High Priest Kitanetos and High Priestess Umpara...they are the servants of the gods. They—”

  “Your place, woman,” Alektryon said forcefully, “is to mind your tongue and not question your husband.” Karpathia narrowed her eyes, letting him see the depths of her resentment, but he knew her too well to be that concerned. It was not the deed itself that infuriated her. She had not cared four years ago when he violated his oaths of loyalty and murdered Minos Narramo, only the fact that she had been excluded from the conspiracy. Women could not be trusted to keep secrets, even a formidable and staunch woman such as his wife.

  “Kitanetos collapsed from sunstroke and struck his head on the pavement. Most unfortunate.” Alektryon removed the midnight blue kilt, so that he stood naked but for his ridiculous lovelocks and jewelry. “Umpara is alive and well for the present, and adjusting to new lodgings in the former sanctuary of Poseidon. Her estates will be sold to repay her creditors. And that is all you need to know.”

  But Karpathia was daunted by neither his reprimand nor his admonishment that she should not meddle. “This is more serious than supplanting the old Minos. The Labyrinth is everything, and you know that.” She shook a thick finger at him, despite the fact that he abhorred correction from a woman. “You have overreached, committed an act of hubris, provided your enemies a means of—”

  “What enemies?” He closed his hand around her pointing finger. “Do you think I usurped the Labyrinth on a whim? I have been planning this for years. The suppression of ancient cults and their servants, the elimination of rivals—I have done this all with this day in mind.” His nakedness, coupled with her familiar defiance and the headiness of the day’s triumph, stirred his arousal. A vigorous tumble tonight with Karpathia might be just the merriment he desired. “The weak do not sweep the tired old order aside and restore the Labyrinth. This we have seen. The gods will be grateful for our piety.”

  “Hah! Is that what you call it?” Karpathia wrested free from his grasp. “You said nothing of this to me. Am I not your wife, your wanassa, mistress of your house? Yet you conspired without my knowledge.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, squashing them together in a way he found stimulating. Compared with her voluptuousness, the Egyptian girl was as flat as a tablet. “You might as well tell me what else you have been withholding from me.”

  Alektryon laughed outright. “What a typical woman, always wanting to know everything! I did not tell you because the larger a conspiracy becomes, the harder it is to conceal.” Clasping her tightly in his embrace, he brushed his lips against her plump cheek. “Come, give me a kiss—and stop pretending to be dismayed that Umpara has been put
in her place. You never liked her, anyway.”

  “Oh, stop that, you randy goat.” Karpathia shoved his chest, although not very forcefully, and she did not resist when he squeezed her breast. “I saw you ogling that girl before.”

  Alektryon located her nipple through the brocaded linen of her bodice, and fondled it erect. “Well, she is not here, is she?” Far from pushing him away, Karpathia clutched him tighter, freeing him to move his hand up her skirt to find the moisture between her thighs. “And besides, I can have that slut any night. Tonight, we celebrate.”

  *~*~*~*

  At first, Umpara resisted, as a fly did when caught in a spider’s web. She spent that evening hollering curses and shouting for help until her throat was hoarse. Then, rather than sleep in the frescoed, moonlit bedchamber her maids had prepared, a chamber that had once housed the xoanon of Poseidon, she tried to send them with messages for Tanqara, Amunisa, anyone who might rescue her. Yet her women returned shortly, protesting that the Hellene sentries posted on the last landing had, despite their pleas, refused to let them pass.

  So she explored the suite of rooms that had comprised the lower Poseidon sanctuary, discovering in the course of her investigation that there was more than one egress, but every single one returned her to the main corridor and the staircase. Three Hellenes, faces hidden within the shadows cast by their boar tusk helmets, watched the landing. So many guards for just one woman?

  Their physical presence roused her anger anew. Marching directly toward them, disdaining them like insects, she tried to walk past. Spears and waisted shields barred her passage in unison.

  “You may not leave,” said the middle sentry.

  Umpara did not give ground. “Do you know who I am?” Silence. An attempt at intimidation. “I am the high priestess of the Labyrinth, mistress of this place. You will stand aside.”

  The sentry answered, his voice rumbling in his chest, “You will return to your chambers.”

  When she refused, the man issued a command in the Hellene tongue, of which she comprehended little. The captain’s subordinates propped their spears against the balustrade, slung their shields across their backs, and seized her by the arms to haul her back to the sanctuary.

  “Unhand me!” Her shouts fell on deaf ears. The men deposited her like so much baggage in the hall, then turned on their heels and shut the pier-and-partition doors. Umpara railed against the indignity, grabbed a painted vessel that her women had just unpacked, and hurled it at the doors, where it shattered. “Rhaya curse you all!” she shrieked, despite the hoarseness of her throat from her earlier screaming.

  Umpara felt too much on edge to sleep that night; her incessant pacing and muttering kept her women awake, too. As dawn’s rays reached down the light-well, the sentries opened the pier-and-partition doors—not to release her, but to admit servants with clean water and nourishment, and, to her further dismay, to replace one of her handmaidens with a strange woman.

  As the sentries began to withdraw, to shut the doors again, she accosted them. “I have duties to perform in the sanctuary of Rhaya.” She indicated with a nod the handmaiden the captain was hustling out. “Piria is a novice priestess. She must attend me, and perform her reverences to the goddess.” When none of the guards responded, she added, “Piria is a consecrated virgin.”

  Advancing a step, glowering, the captain addressed the insinuation of rape. “We are also consecrated to the service of the Labyrinth, woman.” He was choking with rage. “Our orders are to escort the girl upstairs to the sanctuary so she may serve the goddess, nothing more.”

  Piria’s fearful expression, which had prompted Umpara’s comment, abated somewhat, though her mistress was not quite satisfied. “And who is overseeing the sanctuary in my absence?”

  But the captain said nothing, merely retreated with his men and her novice in tow. Umpara considered calling after them, throwing herself against the doors, for all the effect it would have. There were, she saw then, other ways to win her freedom. When she failed to appear for the morning rites, when word spread that she was a prisoner, there would be an outcry. Her supporters would come storming down the stairs to overpower the guards and release her. Alektryon, that duplicitous Hellene blasphemer, would find it harder than he anticipated to keep her immured. By nightfall, she would surely be free and able to bring about the downfall of the Minos. Had she but known four years ago what a brazen heretic he would turn out to be, she would never have lent him her support or agreed to let him to finance the restoration of the Labyrinth.

  Smiling then, she allowed her women to undress and bathe her in the broad tub. Afterward she lay down in the cool of her chamber to await her deliverance.

  Hours passed. The sanctuary was as still as a tomb, and the only visitors she received from above were the buzzing flies hovering around the food and drink offerings she had dedicated earlier on her personal altar. Rhaya would surely answer her prayers, but she wondered all the same why she could not hear the sounds of fighting taking place in the courtyard. Had the armed men the Minos let into the Labyrinth been struck down by outraged gods? Had they simply thrown down their weapons when confronted by the high priestess’s allies? Or perhaps the answer was a combination of the two: the Hellenes had abandoned their posts from fear of divine retribution.

  Umpara took that thought to heart. She must be up and ready for her rescuers, not lounging about in her shift. Clapping her hands, she called for fresh raiment, her cosmetic palette, her scents, and her jewel casket. She ordered her women to make themselves presentable, while she arranged herself on an inlaid chair opposite the doorway. When her rescuers entered, she, the high priestess of Knossos, would be the first dazzling sight they encountered.

  She waited and waited, as the pattern of illumination falling through the light-well followed the sun’s path, shifting with the passage of the hours. Silence continued to reign. Umpara tried to remain calm, but every hour sent her handmaidens to the stairwell to see whether anyone was coming. Always the same answer: there was nothing to report. The Hellene guards stayed on duty, and even expressed annoyance with the women’s continued insistence that help was coming. Umpara scowled when she heard of the men’s scornful skepticism, but then doubts, which she saw reflected eightfold in the faces of her handmaids, edged in. Her optimism started to fade. Surely by now she would have heard of a rescue attempt.

  “No one is coming, High Priestess.” The strange woman, who had taken a seat in a corner, had remained inconspicuous until that moment. “Your friends are scattered, exiled, dead.”

  Umpara spun around to face her. The stranger was sloe-eyed, olive-skinned, on the youngish side of middle age. Whoever she was, she was no novice, and definitely no consecrated virgin. “Spare me your lies.”

  “I am telling you the truth, on Mother Rhaya’s sacred breast.” The woman pressed a hand to her own ample bosom.

  “Do not profane her name,” Umpara hissed.

  The woman laughed lightly. “Oh, I am not. I, too, am a priestess.” Umpara stared. Nothing about the interloper said “priestess.”

  After a moment, the stranger continued, “I might as well explain. For every insolence you commit, the Minos will replace one of your handmaidens with a priestess or slave you do not know. Your outburst on the stairs last night precipitated your losing Piria. Who knows, but Alektryon might decide to take another novice for the insult you gave Captain Klumenos earlier.”

  Umpara could not believe what she was hearing. The Minos would not break her so easily. Defeat was impossible, inconceivable. “What insult?” she snapped. “If anyone has offended, it is him, for his rude manners.”

  The priestess laughed again, with a throatier cadence. “You think so? You know nothing. There are a great many Hellene warriors who would take advantage of your circumstances and introduce you and your women to their spears, and I am not referring to the weapons in their hands. They have done it elsewhere.” She reached down and gathered up the hem of her dark blue skirt in order to
massage a shapely calf bearing a labrys tattoo. “Klumenos himself told you he was a decent man.”

  “What is your name?” Umpara demanded sharply. Melana. A southern name, often found among girls from Sacred Three and Phaistos. “And you consent to seeing your high priestess so undone?”

  Melana rose from the footstool she had taken and indolently stretched her tendons. “Except that you are not my high priestess. I am a priestess of Atana. I volunteered for this unpleasant task, in return for which I will be installed as Head Priestess of Atana when the goddess receives her own sanctuary in the Labyrinth.” She bestowed upon Umpara a sweet smile laced with acid. “You might as well sponge off your cosmetics. No one is coming for you.”

  Umpara could have snatched the vessel standing on the inlaid table beside her and smashed it against the wall, the slut vexed her so. So Melana was a heretic, such as those Umpara’s agents sought out and suppressed. The thought of breathing the same air as the woman turned the high priestess’s stomach.

  She slept fitfully through that night, dozing in a half-alert limbo where her senses perceived every tiptoeing footfall her women made outside her chamber, every architectural creak and settle of the ancient structure half-buried within the hill, and every audible movement of air as a sign that someone was coming, that her deliverance was at hand. Disheartened, exhausted, she shambled through the following day in her smeared paint and rumpled finery. She would not allow her women to sponge her face clean or change her garments, only to retouch her cosmetics, straighten her clothing, and readjust her elaborate coiffure. She would not give Melana—and through her, the Minos—the satisfaction of submission.

  At last, someone came for her. Her heart leapt at the sound of men’s footfalls, then plummeted when Captain Klumenos appeared with two guards. “The Minos has granted permission for you to take air and exercise upstairs,” he informed her. His tone remained neutral, though his expression said he would rather she languish in the dim confines of her basement apartment.