Knossos

by Laura Gill

  Perhaps the gods were occupied elsewhere, or perhaps they did not understand the passing of time in mortal terms, because her confinement continued. The cycle of seasons turned, five years passed, and slowly, her handmaidens became full-fledged priestesses and departed. Even Melana retired, assuming her promised position as Head Priestess of Atana Potnia. The women who attended Umpara now were all strangers, mostly daughters of the Hellene nobility, who brought with them their heretical beliefs and an unwillingness to accept her instruction.

  In the autumn of the fifth year, Alektryon celebrated his ninth regnal year and his reinvestment as Minos. Umpara was invited to partake in the ceremonies in the Minos sanctuary, refurbished now with frescoes depicting a fertile landscape of palm trees, mountains, and flowing rivers. A couchant griffin, a sign of the divine presence, lounged on the far wall. Umpara shook her head. Why did the immortals bless the usurper, when they should have punished his presumption by striking him dead before he assumed his seat on the backless gypsum throne?

  Afterward, she was his guest at a private banquet he gave upstairs. Seated near the window overlooking the west court, she noticed that the reek of urine had vanished along with the beggars. The Minos had done what she could not, she reflected grimly, and restored orderliness.

  Her appetite did not extend to the fine wine, sweetmeats, and delicacies on offer. As there was no one aside from her women to talk to, she eavesdropped on the conversation between Priest-Architect Daida and the magistrate from southern Kaphtor who was complimenting him on the progress of the reconstruction.

  “My guests at Sacred Three are always asking me, however is the palace of Minos coming along? Splendidly, I tell them.” His gestures corresponded with the broad smile plastered across his mouth. Umpara could not recall his name, or whether she had ever exchanged words with him.

  Turning her head, she carefully examined the priests, nobles, and ladies who were Alektryon’s guests. Most of them, she could not recognize. To judge from their atrocious accents, most were of Hellene origin. Those few whom she identified as Kaphti wore their clothes in the ostentatious, barbaric splendor of the Hellenes, with excess adornment—substance without style, she thought—and referred to the gods by their Hellene names. Even High Priest Malachos affected mainland fashions.

  The palace of Minos. Was that how the people of Kaphtor were referring to the Labyrinth now, or were the speakers, knowing she was within earshot, simply mocking her? Palace of Minos! She could have laughed at the absurdity, because the Minos did not even dwell there!

  And yet, the appellation pierced her like the sting of a dart, because, feeling old-fashioned and insignificant, a lowly moth in a chamber of butterflies, she saw how true it was. The Labyrinth would never again know the glory of the days when her predecessors, her own foremothers, had ruled.

  The palace of Minos. Alektryon had trodden all over her domain, had stolen the birthright of her daughters and granddaughters. What would become of their authority in the world he had created? She cared little for her own fate, for she now knew herself to be obsolete, aging. She also knew that, unlike Europa, she would never be rescued from her confinement, because the familiar, welcoming world into which she had hoped to be delivered no longer existed.

  It was on that day that she began to die.

  Nine

  Ariadne

  1381 B.C.

  “Tauros?”

  Ariadne heard her protector’s heavy breathing the moment she stepped into the passageway. Prior experience told her to go right, and then straight and right again, through gloomy shadows with her clay lamp.

  Then the darkness answered, “Here, little one.” A bull’s massive head appeared, a shadow against shadows, looming above her. She had to crane her neck to make out the curvature of his horns.

  The sinewy arms of a man gathered her close. Ariadne’s short arms went around his middle, and she snuggled against the musty pelt blanketing his chest.

  Minotauros had first appeared to her years ago, in the confusing time after her mother’s death, when the priests had informed her that she and her younger half-sister would remain immured in the Labyrinth. Manifesting first as a kind but disembodied voice in the darkness that Ariadne so feared, Minotauros had explained that he served both the Minos and Poseidon, while urging her not to be afraid of his appearance. She had already known that a bull-man dwelled in the Labyrinth, where he devoured misbehaving children; her mother, the high priestess, always used to caution her and Phaedra not to rouse the slumbering beast. But Minotauros had reassured her that her benefactors had not sent him to devour her, that he intended only to befriend and protect her.

  “I am so glad you came!” Ariadne had not called upon him except within her heart. There was no summoning Minotauros, and he never came directly to her apartment, but always signaled his presence and requested hers by dropping a pebble down the light-well. In the beginning, she used to believe that he was immortal Poseidon himself.

  “Are you crying, child?” The mask muffled his voice. His long, thin fingers combed through tangles that she would not let her nurse touch. “Tell me what grieves you. I will make everything better.”

  Could he? Whenever he was near, her subterranean living quarters seemed less ominous, the spirits whispering in the shadows were still, and the soot-stained, frescoed passageways did not threaten to close in on her. Could he work his magic in the aboveground world?

  “It is not fair! I am sixteen. I have had my first bleeding. I have received the mysteries, but still they do not make me high priestess. Lady Wordeia continues to control everything.” Ariadne fumbled for the clay tablet secreted in her gown’s pocket. “Just look at this!”

  Sun-baked, shaped like a palm frond, it fit snugly in her hand. When her tutor had shown it to her, instructing her to transcribe the inscription, she had instead stolen the tablet and kept it with her to obsess over its markings and what they told her about her status.

  Minotauros, however, did not take the tablet. “It is too dark, child, and a bull’s eyes cannot read men’s signs very well,” he explained. “But you have had lessons reading and writing. Tell me what it says.”

  Ariadne did not have to glance at the tablet to able to recite its contents, because after several days and frustrated tears all was scored into her memory. “An offering of a measure of honey to the Potnia of the Labyrinth. I have seen other tablets recording other offerings: lengths of wool, measures of oil and perfume. I am the goddess’s representative on the earth, I am the rightful Mistress of the Labyrinth, the true high priestess, but Lady Wordeia claims everything!” Emotion shook her voice. Angry tears moistened her eyes. “I suffered for the goddess, and there is nothing for me!”

  Ariadne had not expected her flowering to be so messy and uncomfortable, and embarrassing. Yet she had liked the mysteries afterward, when she imbibed the smoke of the poppies and drank honeyed wine in order to commune with the goddess Rhaya. To her great delight, the goddess and her attendants had come alive, stepping down from the fresco beside the altar to dance around her. Rhaya had even spoken with her mother Pasiphae’s voice, and bestowed a kiss on her forehead. Ariadne knew that was a blessing, a sure sign that she was ready to assume the responsibilities of the high priestess.

  “It has not yet even been two weeks, and you are still very young. Be patient,” Minotauros answered. How could he remain so calm when her rights were being trampled? “Your time will come.”

  “No, it will not!” she insisted. “They have forgotten me, shut me away in this dark, cramped place.” Ariadne gasped for breath. “They will never release me into the light unless you do something!”

  Minotauros patted her head. “You must learn patience, child. Sixteen is too young to expect—”

  “Stop calling me a child!” Ariadne broke away from his embrace. “Do you not see?” She smoothed her hands over her dress to emphasize the contours of her breasts. “This is the body of a grown woman. I am a goddess and a high priestess. I should
be consecrated now, elevated to my rightful place. You must be my protector above as well as below. You must call upon Poseidon to open their eyes and make them see!”

  Minotauros extended an arm to her. His muffled voice thickened further. “I have no such authority above, only here in the shadows, in the place that is yours.”

  Ariadne heard only no, a word she could not stand. Her heart was racing, her breath coming shorter, gasping. The passageway in which they stood began to constrict and darken, becoming more forbidding with each passing second. Was Minotauros doing that? Her apartments sometimes became colder and more dreadful whenever there was discord between them.

  “Go away!” she sobbed. Turning, she fled the corridor, seeking the relative protection of the main hall. She should have been there with her women, mastering the art of placing fine stitches or producing an even thread, but the monotonous labor always sent her thoughts wandering, craving diversions, knowledge, the freedom of the outdoors. How she missed grandmother Aleksandra’s farm at such times! She would not have needed Minotauros’s reassurance there, in the open sheep pastures under the wide blue sky. She would not have needed anyone.

  Myrna, her nurse, called after her, “There you are! Come attend to your spindle. You have not yet finished your day’s share of spinning.”

  Ignoring the stolid old woman, Ariadne scrambled over a cushioned bench, upsetting spindles and wool baskets, and provoking cries of alarm, in order to access the center of the light-well. Despite the lateness of the afternoon, motes of sunlight teased the bottom. Ariadne liked to hunker down in the shaft and absorb whatever warmth soaked the stones. Whenever Minotauros did not come, she often waited there for his signal.

  Spring was still young, though, and scant sunlight reached her. That was not uncommon below the sanctuary of Rhaya. Five stories high, the light-well in Ariadne’s subterranean apartment was an unreliable source of illumination. She shivered, recalling winter’s grimness and the perpetual chill of the corridor. Her mother had not always lived there. Pasiphae used to own a fine house in the town. There had been an inner courtyard with a fountain and flowering trees, and she used to entertain. But then she became ill and hid away in the Labyrinth, in the apartment that had once served as a place of confinement for Ariadne’s great-great-grandmother, High Priestess Umpara.

  Although gaily decorated, the apartment was a prison, a tomb, a place of sickness and ghosts. When Pasiphae died, no one had come to release Ariadne and Phaedra from the darkness.

  Why had she driven Minotauros away? He had often counseled her against acting impulsively and throwing tantrums. Remorse overwhelmed her, prompting her to escape the light-well as swiftly as she had sought it out. Once again she stepped over the women, disturbing their repose. Myrna stood and extended a plump arm toward her, imploring, “Stop this, Ariadne. Oh, what’s the matter, child?”

  Ariadne was gone from the main hall before the last words left Myrna’s mouth. The shadows of the passageway swallowed her again. She navigated by the familiarity of touch while her eyes adjusted to the dimness. “Tauros?” she whimpered. “Please come back, Tauros!” Yet there was no response but her own breathing and the relentless pounding of her heartbeat, and now the walls were aspirating, pulsating, threatening to close in. She was completely alone, desolate.

  *~*~*~*

  “I have no idea what to do with her. Wordeia would have me send her back to her grandmother, but...” Argurios belched. That night’s lamb had been spiced with too much coriander, when his wife knew perfectly well how much spicy food disagreed with him. “I should never have heeded Lady Pasiphae’s dying wishes.”

  The Minos made a point never to confide in women. Women often caused more problems than their company was worth, and under different circumstances, voicing his troubles to his concubine while they dallied in bed would have struck him as a colossal waste of time. However, he had plans for the lovely woman beside him.

  Alaia’s glorious blue-black hair whispered across his chest. Her fragrance filled his nostrils. Cypress oil, evoking the freshness of the mountains. Before encountering her in the wool master’s counting house where her husband, a knock-kneed scribe, had presented him with the season’s tallies, Argurios had never realized that the scribal class could produce such luscious creatures.

  Naturally, Wordeia complained about the impropriety of his associating so intimately with a married, lower-class woman. His wife never let a week pass without reminding her husband that she was the favorite daughter of the king of Tiryns. By mighty Diwios’s thunderbolt, was there ever a woman who cursed her spouse with piles and indigestion as Wordeia cursed him? Alaia’s submissive demeanor and beauty managed to soothe his ailments, which was why Argurios had summoned her from her husband’s house—that, and the fact that the mere thought of her always stiffened his member.

  He slapped her buttocks to command her attention, while enjoying the smack of his hand against her pliant flesh. “Do me a favor, yes?”

  “What shall I do for you, Minos?”

  He could think of three dozen salacious things she might have done, but he decided he would reward them both with another romp once he dealt with the business at hand. “I have authorized an outing for the young lady and her sister tomorrow, and I have decided that you should accompany them. I want you to keep them entertained. Observe what they do and say.”

  Alaia responded with a look of genuine bewilderment. “You would have me spy on them?”

  “Do you object to serving your Minos?” Argurios let the implied threat of violence linger between them. It would be a shame to have to send her home bruised, but his concubine should know well enough by now never to show reluctance, complain, or question his commands.

  At once she corrected herself, sweetening her deference with a timid smile. “Of course not. It is only that the young lady and her sister rank so far above me. Would Lady Wordeia or one of the court ladies or Labyrinth priestesses not be a more suitable chaperone?”

  A prurient observation, showing that Alaia knew her place. Argurios indulged her with a smile. “Perhaps, but the young ladies will be comfortable and not guard their tongues so in your presence. I do not suspect them of any wrongdoing, only that they have been confined throughout the winter, and Lady Ariadne has become agitated with her recent flowering.”

  According to his many agents in the Labyrinth, Ariadne suffered from panic attacks and fancies well beyond a female’s natural hysteria. Furthermore, she had proven immune to discipline, was not very intelligent, and, having flowered, she chafed at being denied the chance to play Mistress of the Labyrinth. Yet he preferred not to share this knowledge with his concubine. She had no need to hear about the cult restrictions governing Ariadne’s life, and should not undertake her task with any preconceived notions.

  “You will meet the ladies at the waterfront behind the shrine of Diwios tomorrow morning, two hours before midday.” Reaching down, he gave Alaia’s buttock a second smack. How he loved that sound and the way her skin flushed scarlet! “Now show me your backside.”

  A vigorous round of lovemaking followed by a sound sleep settled his mind for the remainder of the night. Yet morning, peeking with bright fingers through his east window, brought an empty bed and a return to his cares.

  Noises in the corridor outside his bedchamber reminded Argurios that the mornings belonged to his wife.

  Wordeia insisted on paying her respects while his servant dressed him. Not that she respected him in the slightest, a fact she sported in the haughty tones with which she addressed him, or in the way she raised her cleft chin to hold her head high. Publicly, Argurios could not complain, because Wordeia’s breeding showed in the efficiency with which she performed her duties in the Labyrinth, raised their children, and acted as mistress of the house and royal court. Privately, he found her stubborn, vociferous with her opinions and a cold fish in bed. Had her Argive kinsmen not been so tetchy, and had he the legal grounds to do so, he would have divorced her years ago.

/>   “Why do you buzz about my ears with this babble about the larders?” he grumbled irritably. “Are you so inept that you need my approval to dispense honey and oil to the kitchens?”

  Wordeia lounged in the doorway, malice dripping from her crooked smile. She was dressed for the day’s business in a woolen gown banded with scarlet, brown, and ivory. A wooden diptych and stylus were clasped in her right hand. Must she flaunt her proficiency for signs and figures in his face? Argurios wondered. “Husband,” she cooed, with the utmost insincerity, “I would not have it said that I was keeping secrets from you.”

  “You are nosing about, that is what you are doing.” Turning his back to her so his attendant could fasten his kilt, Argurios nonchalantly broke wind in his wife’s direction. “The woman has gone home, if you must know—which you do not.” He sucked in his stomach, dismayed to discover that the kilt, his favorite, crimson embroidered with golden bees, had shrunk. An irascible grunt and a gesture sent the man scrambling to the chest for another garment. “If you want to be useful,” he told his wife, “then scold the laundresses for their incompetence.”

  Wordeia snorted, “Scold yourself for eating too much and exercising too little. The rest is not my concern.” She paused to watch him exchange the smaller kilt for another in saffron yellow. Argurios reflected that Wordeia might as well have been a lioness from the mainland studying her prey, she prolonged the silent vigil to such uncomfortable heights.

  Once, he used to smack her for such insolence. Now, accustomed to her habitual needling, he simply asked, “What do you want?” Argurios knew what he wanted: a morning without her.

  Wordeia hemmed and hawed a little to further his annoyance before answering, “Ortinawas informs me that you are visiting Priest-Architect Daikantos after the morning petitions.”