‘Hear me, my guest Duncan. I say nothing to your dishonor, but an outlander such as you is easily hoodwinked. Let me tell you how things really are.
‘The reality is that Crete sits at this end of the Midworld Sea like a spider in its web, and the Hellenic tribes grow weary of being flies trapped and bloodsucked. Every realm of us in reach of a coastline must bend the knee, pay the tribute, send the hostages, keep no more ships than the Minos allows nor carry out any venture the Minos disallows. We want our freedom.’
‘Forgive this outlander, my lord,’ Reid dared say, ‘but doesn’t the tribute – timber, grain, goods that set the Cretans free to do other things than produce them, I suppose – doesn’t it buy you protection from piracy, and so help rather than hinder you?’
Theseus snorted. ‘“Piracy” is what the Minos says it is. Why should our young men not be let blood themselves, and win their fortunes off a Levantine tin ship or a Hittite town? Because it would inconvenience the Cretans in their trade relationships with those places, that’s why.’ He paused. ‘More to the point, maybe, why should my father or I not be allowed to unite Attica? Why should other Achaean kings not bring their own kinfolk together in like wise? It wouldn’t take much warring. But no, the Minos prevents it by a net of treaties – to keep the “barbarians” divided and therefore weak,’ he fleered. The word he used had the connotation of the English ‘backward natives.’
‘A balance of power—’ Reid attempted.
‘And the Minos holding the scales! Listen. Northward and eastward, in the mountains, are the real barbarians. They prowl the marches like wolves. If we Achaeans cannot be brought together, in the end we’ll be invaded and overrun. What then of “preserving civilization,” when the scrolls burn with the cities?
‘Civilization,’ Theseus continued after a moment. ‘Are we such oafs born that we can’t take our fair part in it? They were Argives who decided the old priestly script of Crete was too cumbersome and devised a new one, so much better that now probably half the clerks in Knossos are Argives.’
There was the answer to the riddle of Linear A and Linear B, Reid thought faintly. No conquest by Homeric Greeks – not yet – simply adoption of a desirable foreign invention, like Europe taking numerals from the Arabs or wall paper from the Chinese or kayaks from the Eskimos – or he himself, bound for Japan. Evidently quite a few Achaeans were resident in Knossos, and no doubt in other Cretan towns. Scribes expert in Linear B would naturally be hired from among them, and the scribes would naturally prefer to use their own language, which the script best fitted.
A potential fifth column?
‘Not that I personally believe that’s any great thing,’ Theseus said. ‘Punching marks on clay tablets or scribbling on papyrus is no fit work for a man.’
‘What is, my lord?’ Reid asked.
‘To plow, sow, reap, build, hunt, sail, make war, make love, make a strong home for his kin and an honored name for his descendants. And for us who are kings, also to raise up and defend the kingdom.’
A horse shied. Theseus needed a minute with reins and whip to bring the team under control. Afterward he drove two-handed, eyes straight before him, talking in a monotone that blew back over his shoulder:
‘Let me tell you the story. It’s no secret. Some fifty years ago the Kalydonians and certain allies launched an expedition which fell on southern Crete and sacked a number of towns, harrying so well that these have not since been rebuilt. They could do this because of secret preparations and because three weak, pleasure-loving Minoses in a row had neglected the navy. Crete’s been well logged by now, you see, so ship timber must be imported as you guessed, at the expense of luxuries.
‘But a new admiral got command. Next year he whipped the Kalydonians with what vessels he had. A new Minos came to the throne soon after and helped this Admiral Rheakles strengthen the fleet. They decided between them to bring under control all Achaeans who had seaports and hence might threaten the Thalassocracy. This they did, partly by outright conquest, partly by playing us off against each other.
‘Well, seven and twenty years ago, my father Aegeus sought to end his vassalage and unite Attica. He revolted. It was put down. The Minos let him remain as under-king, to avoid a protracted war that might have spread, but laid harsh terms on him. Among other conditions, every nine years, seven youths and seven maidens of our noblest families must go to Knossos, living as hostages till the next lot arrives.’
‘What?’ Reid asked. ‘They’re not … sacrificed to the Minotaur?’
Theseus cast him a glance. ‘What’re you talking about? The Minotaur is the sacrifice. Don’t you see the cunning of the scheme? The hostages leave here at their most impressionable age. They come home grown, ready to join our most important councils and continue our most powerful houses – but dyed for life in Cretan colors.
‘Well. Even that far back, Diores was a shrewd adviser. Without him we’d have gotten worse peace terms than we did. Now my father had no living sons, and my uncle’s were among the first hostages chosen, of course. Diores urged my father to go to Troezen, at the end of the Argolis peninsula. Its king was his kinsman and an old ally. He agreed to the plan, that my father should secretly beget an heir on a daughter of his. I was that heir.’
It wouldn’t be impossible to keep such an operation confidential, Reid reflected, in this world of tenuous communications between realms often separated by trackless wildernesses.
‘I was raised in Troezen,’ Theseus said. ‘It also was tributary to Crete, but being poor, it rarely saw a Cretan. – Poor? In manhood we were rich. Before the first beard bloomed on my cheeks I was helping clear bandits and roving beasts out of the hinterlands.
‘Diores often came visiting. Five years back he brought me to Athens. I claimed the heirship; my Cretan-loving cousins denied me it, my party’d kept their swords loose in the scabbards; and afterward the Minos could do nothing.’
Or would do nothing, Reid thought. Does an empire mainly interested in keeping peace along its borders and trade lanes ever pay close attention to dynastic quarrels among the tribes it’s holding in check … until the day when, too late, it wishes it had done so?
‘What are your plans, my lord?’ he felt he might ask.
Heavy shoulders rose and fell beneath the tossing cloak. ‘To do what seems best. I’ll tell you this, Duncan: I’m not ignorant of what goes on in the Thalassocracy. I’ve been there. And not only as a royal visitor, fed buttered words and shown what the courtiers want me to see. No, I’ve fared under different names as trader or deckhand. I’ve looked, listened, met people, learned.’
Again Theseus turned to regard Reid with those disturbing eyes. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘I’ve spoken no dangerous word today. They know in Knossos we’re restless on the mainland. They know, too, as long as their warships outnumber those that they let all the Achaeans together keep, they’re safe. So they don’t mind if we grumble. They’ll even throw us a bone now and then, since we do provide them trade and tribute and a buffer against the mountaineers. I’ve told you nothing that the Cretan resident and his clerk in the palace haven’t often heard – nothing I didn’t say to the Minos’ own first minister, that time I paid my official visit to Knossos.’
‘I’d not denounce you, surely, my lord,’ Reid answered, wishing he were more of a diplomat.
‘You’re something new in the game,’ Theseus growled. ‘Your powers, your knowledge, whatever destiny hovers above you – who knows? At least I want you to have the truth.’
The truth as you see it, Reid thought. Which is not the truth Erissa sees. Me, I’m still a blind man.
‘I fret over what your Cretan leman may whisper to you,’ Theseus said. ‘Or do to you by her arts. Diores warns me she’s a weird creature, closer than most to the All-Mother.’
‘I … did not know … you worshiped her Goddess, my lord.’
Like sundown in a desert, the hardheaded statecraft dropped from Theseus, primitive dread fell upon him, and he whispered, ‘She is ve
ry mighty, very old. Could I but find an oracle to tell me. She’s only the wife of Father Zeus – Hoy!’ he yelled to his horses, and cracked the whip across them. ‘Get going there!’ The chariot rocked.
CHAPTER TEN
The chance to talk privately came three days afterward, when Diores brought Oleg and Uldin back to Athens. They had been days of total fascination for Reid, a torrent of sights, sounds, smells, songs, stories, sudden explosive realizations of what this myth or that line of poetry really signified. And the nights – by tacit agreement, he and Erissa put no word about their fate into their whisperings at night. For the time being, anxiety, culture shock, even homesickness were largely anesthetized in him.
The Russian and the Hun had been still better off. Oleg bubbled about the changes he saw to make innovations, especially in shipbuilding and metallurgy, and thus to make a fortune. In his dour fashion, Uldin registered enthusiasms of his own. Attica held an abundance of swift, spirited horses at the right age for breaking to the saddle and of young men interested in experimenting with cavalry. Give him a few years, he said, and he’d have a troop that nothing could stand against when they rode off a-conquering.
This was related in the hall before Aegeus, Theseus, Diores, and the leading guardsmen. Reid cleared his throat. ‘You suppose we can never return to our countries, don’t you?’ he said.
‘How can we?’ Uldin retorted.
‘It must be talked over.’ Reid braced himself. ‘My lord king, we four have much to decide between us, not least how we can try to show you our gratitude. It won’t be easy to reach agreement, as unlike as we are. I fear it would be impossible in the hustle and bustle of this establishment. You won’t think ill of us, will you, my lord, if we go off alone?’
Aegeus hesitated. Theseus frowned. Diores smiled and said smoothly, ‘Zeus thunder me, no! Tell you what I’ll do. Tomorrow I’ll have a wagon ready, nice comfortable seats, a stock o’ food and drink, and a trusty warrior to drive her wherever you like.’ He lifted his palm. ‘No, don’t deny me, friends. I insist. Nothing’s too good for shipmates o’ mine. Wouldn’t be sensible to leave with a good-looking woman and just two o’ you who can handle a blade.’
And that, Reid thought grimly, was that. They would never be allowed to talk in private.
But when he told Erissa, she was undismayed for some reason.
The fall weather continued pleasant, crisp air, sunshine picking out the gold of summer-dried grass and the hues of such leaves as had started faintly to turn. The wagon, mule-drawn, was indeed easy to ride in. The driver was a big young man named Peneleos, who addressed his passengers courteously though his glance upon them was ice-blue. Reid felt sure that, besides muscles, he had been chosen for especially keen ears and a knowledge of Keftiu.
‘Where to?’ he asked as they rumbled from the palace.
‘A quiet spot,’ Erissa said before anybody else could speak. ‘A place to rest alone.’
‘M-m, the Grove of Periboea? We can get there about when you’ll want your midday bread. If you’re a votaress of Her, my lady, as I’ve been told, you’ll know what we should do so the nymph won’t mind.’
‘Yes. Marvelous.’ Erissa turned to Oleg. ‘Tell me about Diores’ farm. About everything! I’ve been penned. No complaint against the most gracious queen, of course. Achaean ways are not Cretan.’
She has a scheme, Reid realized. His pulse picked up.
Keeping the conversation neutral was no problem, they had a near infinity of memories to trade, from their homes as well as from here. But even had the case been different, Reid knew Erissa would have managed. She wasn’t coquettish; she drew Oleg, Uldin, and Peneleos out by asking intelligent questions and making comments that sparked replies. (‘If your ships, Oleg, are so much sturdier than ours that the … Norsemen, did you say? … actually cross the River Ocean – is that because you’ve harder wood, or iron for nails and braces, or what?’) Then she listened to the reply, leaning close. It was impossible to be unaware of her sculptured features, sea-changeable eyes, lips slightly parted over white teeth, slim throat, and of how the light burnished her hair and the wind pulled her Achaean gown tight around breasts and waist.
She knows men, Reid thought. How she knows them!
The sacred grove was a stand of laurel trees surrounding a small meadow. In the center lay a huge boulder whose shape, vaguely suggestive of a yoni, must account for the demigoddess Periboea. To one side stretched an olive orchard, on the other a barley field, both harvested and deserted. In the background Mount Hymettus dreamed beneath the sun. The trees broke the wind in a lullaby rustle, the sere grass was thick and warm. Here dwelt peace.
Erissa knelt, said a prayer, divided a loaf of bread and laid a portion on the boulder for the nymph to give her birds. Rising, she said, ‘We are welcome. Bring our food and wine from the wagon. And Peneleos, won’t you remove that helmet and breastplate? We can see anybody coming miles away; and it’s not meet to carry weapons before a female deity.’
‘I beg her forgiveness,’ the guardsman said. He was less chagrined than he was glad to take off his burden and relax. They enjoyed a frugal, friendly lunch.
‘Well, we were going to talk over our plans,’ Uldin said afterward.
‘Not yet,’ Erissa answered. ‘I’ve had a better idea. The nymph is well disposed toward us. If we lie down and sleep awhile, she may send us a dream for guidance.’
Peneleos shifted about where he sat. ‘I’m not sleepy,’ he said. ‘Besides, my duty—’
‘Of course. Yet you also have a duty to learn for your king what you can of these strange matters. True?’
‘M-m-m … yes.’
‘It may be that she will favor you above us, this being your country and not ours. Surely she’ll be pleased if you show her the respect of inviting her counsel. Come.’ Erissa took his hand. He rose to her gentle tugging. ‘Over here. On the sunlit side of the rock. Sit down, lean back, feel her warmth. And now—’ She drew from her bosom a small bronze mirror. ‘Now look into this token of the Goddess, Who is the Mother of nymphs.’
She knelt before him. He stared bemusedly at her and the shining disk and back. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘The mirror only, Peneleos, wherein you will see that which She wills.’ She turned it slowly.
Good Lord! thought Reid. He drew Oleg and Uldin away, behind the big stone.
‘What’s she doing?’ the Russian inquired uneasily.
‘Hsh,’ Reid whispered. ‘Sit. Be quiet. This is a holy thing.’
‘A heathen thing, I fear.’ Oleg crossed himself. But he and the Hun obeyed.
Sunlight poured through murmurous leaves. The sweet smell of dried grass lifted like smoke to meet it. Bees hummed among briar roses. Erissa crooned.
When she came around the boulder, none of her morning’s cheerfulness was left. She had laid that aside. Her look was at once grave and exalted. The white streak in her hair stood forth against its darkness like a crown.
Reid got to his feet. ‘You’ve done it?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘He will not awaken before I command. Afterward he will think he drowsed off with the rest of us and had whatever dream I will have related to him.’ She gave the American a close regard. ‘I did not know you knew of the Sleep.’
‘What witchcraft is this?’ Oleg rasped.
Hypnotism, Reid named it to himself. Except that she has more skill in it than any therapist I ever heard of in my own era. Well, I suppose that’s a matter of personality.
‘It is the Sleep,’ Erissa said, ‘that I lay on the sick when it can ease their pain and on the haunted to drive their nightmares out of them. It does not always come when I wish. But Peneleos is a simple fellow and I spent the trip here putting him at ease.’
Uldin nodded. ‘I’ve watched shamans do what you did,’ he remarked. ‘Have no fears, Oleg. Though I never awaited meeting a she-shaman.’
‘Now let us speak,’ Erissa said.
Her sternness brought home to Reid like a sword thrust that
she was not really the frightened castaway, yearning exile, ardent and wistful mistress he had imagined he knew. Those were waves on a deep sea. She had indeed become a stranger to the girl who remembered him – a slave who won free, a wanderer who stayed alive among savages, a queen in the strong household she herself had brought to being, a healer, witch, priestess and prophetess. Suddenly he had an awesome feeling that her triune Goddess had in all truth entered this place and possessed her.
‘What is the doom of Atlantis?’ she went on.
Reid stooped and poured himself a cup of wine to help him swallow his dread. ‘You don’t recall?’ he mumbled.
‘Not the end. The months before, yours and mine, on the holy island and in Knossos, those are unforgotten. But I will not speak of what I now know will be for you even as it was for me. That is too sacred.
‘I will say this: I have questioned out what year this is, and put together such numbers as the years since the present Minos ascended his throne or since the war between Crete and Athens. From these I have reckoned that we are four-and-twenty years from that day when I am borne out of Rhodes to Egypt. You will soon depart hence, Duncan.’
Oleg’s ruddiness had paled. Uldin had retreated into stolidity.
Reid gulped the sharp red wine. He didn’t look at Erissa; his gaze took refuge on Mount Hymettus above the treetops. ‘What is the last you clearly remember?’ he asked.
‘We went to Knossos in spring, we sisters of the rite. I danced with the bulls.’ Her measured, impersonal tone softened. ‘Afterward you came, and we— But Theseus was already there, and others I cannot remember well. Maybe I was too happy to care. Our happiness does live on within me.’ Quieter yet: ‘It will live as long as I do, and I will take it home with me to the Goddess.’
Again she was the wise-woman in council: ‘We need a clearer foreknowledge than my clouded recollections of the end, or the tales about it that I gathered later, can give us. What have you to tell?’
Reid gripped the cup till his fingers hurt. ‘Your Atlantis,’ he said, ‘is that not a volcanic island about sixty miles north of Crete?’
The Dancer from Atlantis Page 9
