The Elementals

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “The heat gives me a headache,” she greeted him. “Be quiet.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Make the heat stop,” she replied petulantly.

  But no one could make the heat stop. Day by day it mounted, fraying nerves, spoiling food. Tulipa’s headache had become so constant he no longer questioned its reality. It was not a device she used to make him feel guilty. She was in real pain. Dark circles appeared under her eyes and she could not eat. She did not even have the energy to scold him.

  He grew increasingly worried about her. She was losing all her pretty roundness; her bones showed through the skin of her face, strangely reminding Meriones of the skull-like visage of the old priest from the Islands of Mist.

  The more ill Tulipa became, the more Meriones recalled how dear she had been to him in their early days together, when he had been as enchanted by her as Hokar was by Ebisha.

  He went to every physician in Knsos, and every herbalist, seeking help for his wife. But nothing stopped her headaches.

  When he played his lyre in the queen’s megaron he was distracted and it showed in his performance.

  “What is wrong with you?” Ebisha whispered to him. “The queen frowns when you play. Does not sound the same now.”

  “My wife is sick and I’m worried about her.”

  “She has a pain?”

  “In her head.”

  “Ah.” Ebisha nodded. “My grandsire could heal.”

  “Much good that does me!” Meriones burst out before he could stop himself. The heat was getting to everyone.

  Next day, Hokar met him at the Sun Gate and pressed an object wrapped in linen into his hands. “Give this to Ebisha, and tell her it’s from me.”

  He had to wait for his chance. At last came a time when the megaron was briefly all but deserted, its usual throng of chattering, chirping courtiers gone to bathe in the pools or lie panting on their beds. Ebisha remained, and Meriones beckoned her to join him behind one of the pillars. “I have a gift for you from Hokar the goldsmith.”

  “Who?” But she took the parcel and unwrapped it.

  Then she gasped. “Look!” She held up a necklace as fine as spiderweb, made of tiny gold links. Spaced along the chain at regular intervals were six miniature gold nautilus shells, repeating the spiral design in the ceiling of the queen’s megaron.

  The gold flashed in Ebisha’s fingers. “It is the metal of the sun!” she cried.

  “This is too elaborate and costly for a slave,” Meriones tried to tell her. “You won’t be allowed to keep it. Give it back and I’ll return it to Hokar and explain.”

  Ebisha’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I cannot keep?” But she handed the necklace back to Meriones without protest.

  Tulipa would have held on to it and argued vehemently, he thought. Aloud he said, “It would make trouble. Hokar should have known this.” He turned away, unable to bear the look of disappointment on her face.

  When he could, he returned the necklace to Hokar in the goldsmiths’ chamber. Hokar looked as disappointed as Ebisha had been. “But it’s not anything lavish,” he protested, “just a trial piece I made that didn’t work out. I thought no one would mind.”

  Meriones turned the glittering trinket over in his fingers, studying it. “Are you saying it’s not perfect?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you lie,” Meriones replied softly. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen you do. This is no trial piece at all, and if the queen had caught Ebisha wearing it I don’t know what would have happened. The queen herself has nothing finer. More elaborate, but not finer.”

  Hokar was crestfallen. “But I want her to have something to remind her of me. I wish I were a painter. I’d reproduce her face and form on every wall in Labrys.”

  Meriones was beginning to lose patience with his friend. “If you care for this girl you have to be quiet about it, Hokar. The courtiers and servants of the palace aren’t encouraged to … well, you know …”

  “I know. And I don’t need any encouragement. Just one look from those green eyes would do it. Meriones, you have to arrange for me to see her again.”

  “Aren’t you listening? She’s a slave. We are not supposed to have anything to do with slaves.”

  “Then I’ll buy her!”

  “How could you? Carambis paid a high price for her, more than you make in a season, I’d guess.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Hokar said. His mouth became a grim, determined line.

  When he left the palace that evening, Meriones did not stride out with his usual arched-back, arm-swinging ebullience. He trudged with his head down, his thoughts alternating between Tulipa at home and Hokar and Ebisha in the palace. A presentiment lay like a cloud on his spirit.

  He walked through heat so thick as to be palpable, even though the sun was setting. The omnipresent sea, nibbling at the northern coastline, had lost its luster and turned dull and sullen.

  The music of Meriones had also lost its brightness. Santhos spoke sharply to him the next day. “What’s wrong with you? Your music sounds more like a dirge, and that is not the sort of music we like in the palace. The queen is displeased.”

  “I have worries.”

  “Everyone has worries! But our personal concerns must not dim the color of the royal apartments. Now Orene is playing your songs, and he sounds better than you do. Correct yourself or you will be playing for the cooks in the kitchens!”

  Meriones struggled to throw off his melancholy. He could not bear to think of reporting another demotion to Tulipa.

  Day after day she lay in the sleeping chamber, or under the olive tree. The olive tree was better, she said, because it was not quite as hot in the courtyard as it was in the upper rooms of the house. But there was no escaping the heat anywhere.

  She had grown very thin. On her behalf Meriones offered gifts of food and wine and faience beads at the shrine of every god who might have any connection with good health and healing. But the sacrifices were wasted. Almost every day, Tulipa suffered a savage headache.

  “Sometimes I wish you would plunge a knife into my skull and let my brains spill out,” she told Meriones. “That would ease the pressure.”

  Her pain tortured him. His early tenderness came flooding back and he sat on the edge of the bed, stroking her hand, fighting back tears.

  He spoke privately to Ebisha in the queen’s megaron. “You said your grandsire could heal?”

  “He can.”

  “You said you have ways of getting word to him?”

  She gave Meriones a guarded look. “Why?”

  “I need … I mean, my wife needs, really … she is very ill, you see, and nothing anyone does seems to help. I have grown desperate, Ebisha. I thought perhaps … your grandsire …” He ran out of words. His dark eyes pleaded.

  “Meriones, I—” Ebisha clamped her mouth shut suddenly. Looking up, Meriones saw the queen watching them.

  “We’ll talk later,” he said under his breath.

  But that same day Santhos came to escort Meriones to the palace kitchens.

  “This is your last chance,” Santhos said. “Do well here, and you will stay in the House of the Double Axes. Fail here, and you will go.”

  But how can I play when my heart is a lump of lead in my breast? Meriones wanted to ask.

  He sat on a bench; he strummed his lyre. No one listened. The kitchens bustled like a hive of bees from before dawn until long after dark. Everyone was hot, bothered, in a hurry. They brushed past Meriones, cursed at him if he was in the way, shouted at one another over the constant clatter of cooking utensils.

  Worst of all, he was not allowed to leave until all work was done in the kitchens for the day, which meant very late at night. He had to make his way home in the dark when most of Knosos was long since asleep. He could not meet Hokar anymore; the goldsmith was also snoring in his bed by the time Meriones made his weary way through the Sun Gate and headed fo
r home.

  He barely had time to prepare a sketchy meal which Tulipa usually could not eat, fall on his bed for a troubled, brief sleep, and arise still in the dark to go to the well for the day’s water. Then he must be on his way back to the palace, leaving his suffering wife behind him physically but carrying her every step of the way on his conscience.

  He arranged with Phrixus and Dendria to look in on her and do what they could for her, but it was not enough. Nothing was enough.

  Meriones began to fear his wife might die.

  A different man might, perhaps, have welcomed freedom from a scold. But Meriones had a gentle heart. Long ago, he had given that heart to Tulipa. It would go into the grave with her. A girl like Ebisha might stir lust in him, or even tenderness, but he had given his wife a part of himself he could not take back, and thus would never have to give again to any woman.

  The music would die with Tulipa, Meriones thought.

  He was desperate to find help for her. When he could slip away from the kitchens he haunted the passageways leading to the royal apartments, hoping to see Ebisha. At last his patience was rewarded. He managed to signal her with his eyes as she walked past at the end of a procession of slaves, carrying bales of fabric to the queen’s seamstresses.

  From the citadels of Mycenae and Tiryns a huge tribute was sent each year to The Minos of Knsos—cattle and oil and wine and every manner of merchandise. Goods were stored in the vast warehouses beneath the palace, but only briefly, for most were used as soon as they arrived. The royal family indulged in an orgy of consumption meant to impress the Mediterranean world with the unrivaled wealth and power of Crete.

  Within the last few days a shipload of rare and costly fabrics had arrived in the harbor. The goods were immediately transported to Labrys, where the royal family would make their selections from the best of the best. When their choices were made, complete new wardrobes would be sewn not only for The Minos and his family, but also for every member of their court.

  The minions of The Minos would bloom like fresh flowers.

  The Minos had recently decreed that each season’s clothing was to be burned at the end of the season, a ceremonial destruction of the old and celebration of the new. This unprecedentedly lavish gesture could not fail to impress the other sea kings.

  Ebisha could barely see over the folds of shimmering cloth she carried, but she nodded to Meriones as best she could. When the procession of slaves passed an open doorway she slipped inside and Meriones quickly joined her.

  They found themselves in one of the many bathing chambers scattered throughout the palace. Its walls were lined with alabaster decorated with frescoes, and the terra cotta bathing tub stood in a recess ornamented by columns. A brazier burned continually, casting flickering shadows.

  As she talked with him, Ebisha rested her burden on a marble shelf meant to hold sponges and bath oils. Meriones was saying, “My wife is very ill and no one can heal her.”

  “I am no healer.”

  “But your grandsire is a magician. Tereus said so. And you are in touch with him. Is there some sort of magic he might do, perhaps? I could find a way to send payment to him, I would gladly …”

  Her eyes filled with pity. “Meriones, I tried to explain before. I can’t talk to him, not the way you think. We exchange our …”—she struggled with words—“our feelings. I know his emotions. No more than that.”

  “You couldn’t ask him to help Tulipa?”

  “No. I am sorry. Nor do I think he would,” Ebisha added honestly. “He is very angry. They treat him badly in this place where he is; they hurt him. He is …”—she sought for the right word again—“he is simmering with anger. He would not want to help. He wants to strike out.” Her eyes were very large. “His feelings frighten me, Meriones.”

  “I’m sorry about all this, Ebisha.”

  “Is not your fault.”

  “I was involved.”

  “If not you, Tereus would have used another person. You at least were kind to us. You tried to help, you argued for my grandsire’s life.

  “Perhaps it would have been better if he died,” she added in a low voice.

  Meriones put a hand on her arm, trying to comfort her in spite of his own pain. Then he saw the slender gold arm ring she wore, half concealed by the sleeve of her tight-fitting bodice.

  The arm ring was gold.

  “Where did you get that?”

  Ebisha’s lashes lowered over her green eyes. “A gift from a friend.”

  “Hokar the goldsmith? You’ve been seeing him?”

  “We meet sometimes,” she admitted.

  “And you’re taking presents from him? Don’t you know how dangerous it is?”

  “He wants me to have them.”

  “But what about Tereus?”

  “I will not see Tereus again,” Ebisha said with female practicality. “I know that. Hokar I see every day. He is good to me. He says he will buy me out of the palace and give me my freedom.”

  Hokar was obviously telling the girl a pleasant little lie. “He can’t buy you,” Meriones said. He did not want her to be deceived, even by his friend. “Hokar is well rewarded for his work, but a master craftsman does not make enough to buy a favorite of the queen.”

  Ebisha lifted her head. In the flickering light her green eyes blazed. “I was born free,” she said.

  “I know, but look at you now. You have beautiful clothes and all you can eat. And I know the queen doesn’t beat you. What more could you want? You are fortunate, really.”

  When she spoke, Ebisha’s voice rang in the alabaster chamber in a way that curiously reminded Meriones of his long-dead grandmother’s voice. “I come from a race of free people,” she said. “I was born free, and even if Hokar has to steal to get me out of here, I shall die free!”

  Her words made a chill run up Meriones’ spine.

  10

  Several days passed, days of unrelenting heat. The House of the Double Axes lay languid beneath a blazing white sun. People longed in vain for the first cool breeze off the sea that would hint at the Season of the Dying God.

  Tulipa was dying. But she did not die. It was as if she held death at arms’ length, somehow, which made it even more painful for Meriones. It was agonizing to leave her in the mornings, yet equally painful to return at night, not knowing what he might find.

  When he found her alive, he knew the agony would continue.

  “There is a growth in her head,” a physician finally told him. “It is the only explanation.”

  “Can’t you do something?”

  “The Egyptians have a technique for opening the skull and operating on the brain, but the only Egyptian physician on Crete is in the court of The Minos. He would not treat your wife.”

  Meriones knew that already. Early in Tulipa’s illness he had tried to gain access to The Minos’ private physician and been forcefully turned away.

  I am no one. Just a minor musician. As Tulipa said, I am nobody.

  Pain lapped in him like a rising tide.

  Santhos caught him by the arm in a passageway of the palace. “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why aren’t you in the kitchens, where you belong?”

  “They never miss me,” Meriones said truthfully.

  “That’s immaterial. You are supposed to be there. If you disobey, I shall be blamed. And I promise you I will pass on to you any punishment I receive!”

  Santhos had caught him just as Meriones was about to attempt another visit to the royal apartments. In desperation, he was going to try to find and appeal to the royal physician himself. But Santhos took hold of his arm in a painful grip and dragged him back to the kitchens, where he proceeded to place a scullery boy on guard over Meriones with orders to report to Santhos immediately if the musician left his post even for a moment.

  When the final meal of the day was cooked and Meriones was at last allowed to leave, he stepped from the perpetually lit halls of the palace into a Stygian darkness. The nigh
t was starless and oppressive. Leaving by the Sun Gate, he had to make his way down the stair very carefully to avoid losing his balance and falling. It would have been easy in the dark to step by mistake into one of the gutters that ran down beside the stair, part of the elaborate system of drains and baffles that slowed the flow of rain runoff and prevented the flooding of palace floors on the lower levels.

  But there had been no rain in a long time. Meriones found himself longing for a storm to lighten the air.

  When he reached Knõsos, and his own street, a dark shape rose before him. By the light of a lantern burning in a nearby window, Meriones recognized Hokar. The goldsmith’s face was haggard and his eyes were sunk in dark hollows.

  But it was not the heat that was affecting him.

  “I’m in terrible trouble, Meriones. I need your help as my friend,” Hokar said urgently, whispering as if afraid they would be overheard.

  “You’d better come into my house and tell me about it.” The musician longed to take off his sweaty clothing and sponge himself from the water barrel in the courtyard, but that would have to wait. Leaving Hokar in the megaron, he took time only to tiptoe upstairs and check on Tulipa.

  She was awake. “I think I feel a little better, Meriones,” she said to his vast relief. “Just a little. The headache is not as bad as it has been.”

  His heart pounded with hope. “Are you sure? Are you getting well?”

  “I don’t know about that, but I do feel somewhat stronger. Perhaps I could eat a little broth … ?”

  Meriones plunged back down the stairs. Ignoring his guest, he busied himself with cooking pots until he had put together a concoction of leftovers that would, he prayed, do his wife some good. He carried a bowl up to her and watched with held breath while she sipped it. When she yawned and fell asleep again he returned to his guest.

  Hokar was waiting patiently. “I have nothing else to do,” he said.

  “What’s this trouble you’re in?”

  Hokar was reluctant to say outright. He came at the subject with uncharacteristic obliqueness. “There was a wrestling exhibition in the Great Central Court today, you know. Everyone who could went to see it.”