by David Bell
The people waiting in the streets and gardens and on the ships in the harbour heard the sound of the chant drifting down from the Temple and many felt the nearness of the Lady Mother. They began to gather to watch the Procession. From his vantage point on the roof Namun could see women assembling outside the Temple and men making their way up the Hill with the chair which four of them would use to carry the High Priestess down the rough road and through the narrow streets to the square in front of Government House. The rich clothes that she would wear and the sacred symbols and tokens she would carry meant that for her to walk would not only be undignified, but impossibly tiring.
As the Procession wound its way through the streets Namun could see little of it but he could track its progress from the music of the lutes and pipes and the sound of singing. In the great square below, people began to push forward to catch a first glimpse of the High Priestess, and of the bull that was going to be sacrificed; and the Men of the Watch had to push them back. Music and the sound of many footsteps now rose from Telchina Street and suddenly the head of the Procession entered the square. First came Temple novices carrying ceremonial brooms made from reeds which they used to sweep the ground symbolically clean for the High Priestess to pass. Others followed, scattering handfuls of spring flower petals from woven baskets. The bull followed, led by two strong men one on each side of it, holding ropes looped round its neck. It had been fed with the pacifying weed, but not too much in case it chose to soil the path of the Procession, as had happened at times in the past, to the amusement of the sceptics and the concern of the faithful who thought it a bad omen. There was a murmur of pleasure from the crowd when it was seen that a white bull, the supremely sacred colour, was to be sacrificed this year. Then came the musicians, by now rather out of breath and occasionally out of tune. The children chosen for the Palace came next, all dressed in long white robes with green girdles. Behind them walked the young woman and her companion, he holding a bag of soft leather filled with seeds that he would pour into the bowl of earth she would offer him. Her beauty, his strength and the eagerness of both were the spirits of spring itself.
Namun watched as these forerunners arranged themselves in two lines facing each other to form a human avenue across the square leading towards the grand entrance to the Residence. A last scattering of petals formed a yellow and blue carpet between the lines. As the young celebrants stood motionless and silent, the buzz of conversation from the watching crowd died away until the only sounds to be heard were from birds flitting to and from their mud nests in the eaves of houses, and the cry of a hungry baby. Two by two, matron servants of the Lady Mother emerged from the narrow street and paced slowly between the lines of silent novices and children. The hems of their long flounced skirts stirred the petals. Their elaborately waved hair, glossy with sweet oil, hung down their backs and their heads were held proudly high. They wore short-sleeved, tightly fitting embroidered bodices so deeply cut at the front that their swelling breasts were all but bare. Each carried a small bronze gong which she sounded at every step with a soft touch of her fingers. They took up their positions on the steps leading up to the doorway. Namun gasped as Akusha stepped into view, wearing a gown that covered her from throat to ankle of golden cotton so sheer that a breath of wind moulded it for an instant like a second skin to the curves of her body, and then, tantalizingly, gently billowed it away again. She had earrings of gold, and bracelets of copper and silver on her slim wrists. In her hair were green leaves of laurel and she carried a wand carved in the form of a palm frond. For a moment Namun thought she must be the High Priestess, but no, of course, she was Sharesh’s mother. Not a priestess, she looked like a goddess, or a queen. He had never seen a queen, nor a goddess, only carvings, but that was what they must look like: proud and beautiful. He looked at the silent crowd; everyone was staring, transfixed. One man was staring hard but in a different way as if he were trying to set the scene in his memory. He looked familiar; then Namun remembered: he was the painter working in Merida’s new house.
A deep sigh swept through the people, and knuckles were pressed to foreheads as the High Priestess appeared, attended by a last group of novices. She had descended from her chair to make this final stately progress on foot, so as to be seen by the people and to bring them close to the Lady Mother by blessing their offerings, and in the sacred room within the building in front of her, to intercede for them in the ancient prayers. In times past the common people had been forbidden to look at her or be present at this Procession, but the Lady Mother now saw fit to recognise the dedication of her people in this way. Namun looked at her in awe: her rich skirt flaring from rounded hips below a tightly girdled tiny waist; her bodice with its pattern of wavy lines, tucked under the girdle and apron, open to the waist pushing out firm breasts, covered modestly with thin silk; her hair in long ringlets, cheeks rouged, eyelids darkened with fine powder. Her slim forearms were bare but for gold bracelets and in each hand she held up a wand of green-leafed creeper, curved sinuously like a snake. Namun was fascinated, but puzzled. She had the arms and the bosom of a young woman, a bride, perhaps; but was she not the Lady Mother when the goddess graced the Festival? He had heard that the Ashatar took the form of a human woman when she wanted things that humans could offer.
As the High Priestess was ascending the steps, Namun saw that a tall man with white hair, wearing a long tunic and a scarf over the lower part of his face, was standing in the doorway with bandaged hands extended in greeting towards her. It was the first time Namun had seen the Governor. They went inside, followed by Akusha, the other matrons and the young woman who was the spirit of spring, with her escort. The Temple novices and chosen children were last to enter the Residence. Namun realised that the white bull and its handlers had disappeared without his noticing them go.
The people in the square knew there was nothing more to see until the High Priestess and her servants emerged at noon to proceed to the harbour for the blessing of the ships. After the departure of the High Priestess back to the Temple on the Hill, there would be games in the fields at the edge of the town. Most of the crowd dispersed, some to the harbour to secure a good place from which to see the ceremony, others to their homes and farmsteads to celebrate the coming of spring in their own private ways, while a few stayed to talk with their friends. As the people drifted away, Namun saw a curious sight. In a small gated courtyard near to, but hidden from, the square a dance was being performed by a group of men. At least, Namun guessed they were men because of their muscular arms and their dark skin. He could not see their faces because they were wearing masks made from wood and leather and cloth, and all very real. One wore a bull’s head with high curving horns, another a deer’s head with antlers and a third the pink jowls and snout of a pig. There was a hare face, a ram’s head and a lion’s head with a mane. They were moving slowly in a circle, first one way, then the other, stamping their feet and lowering and raising their masked heads. In the centre of the circle was a stone pillar about waist high with a flat top on which Namun could see lay a dead ram, blood seeping from its throat. The other thing that was very obvious to see was that each man had a great wooden phallus strapped to his waist and that as he stamped around in the circle he raised his phallus erect with one hand and gave out his animal cry.
Namun never thought such a thing would go on in a town, even if it were hidden away behind courtyard walls and a locked door. From what some of the Dolphin’s crew had said in the days before the Festival, there would be dances like this, and others by women themselves, in some of the settlements in the more remote parts of the island, celebrating the coming of spring in simpler, more ancient rituals than the one he had been watching in the square below such a short time ago. The Town Guardian had said they were barbarous rites unsuited to a prosperous town with a Temple and a High Priestess. Indecent behaviour happened because of the things they ate and drank, and they ought to be banned. The Governor seemed reluctant to intervene so harshly, but he was firm in r
efusing to allow these rituals to be performed in public.
Namun had seen enough to make him eager to tell everything to Sharesh, if he could find him. The harbour would be the place to start. He slid down from the roof, startling a dozing couple on the terrace and raced off towards Ship Street and the harbour, pursued by angry shouts.
Inside painted chambers deep within the great building that Namun was passing, the young woman and her companion had been separated and each ritually cleansed by the matron servants of the High Priestess in consecrated water filling shallow alabaster basins let into the floor. Clothed in white shifts they were brought into the presence of the High Priestess who was standing in front of an altar of white marble carved into the shape of a column. On the altar were the leather bag filled with seeds and the bowl of earth with its lid that the two young people had carried during the Procession. The High Priestess looked from one to the other and holding out her hands palms uppermost, spoke in a clear, solemn voice to the woman:
“The Lady Mother bids you lay open the earth to receive the seed.” Then to the man, “The Lady Mother bids you pour the seed into the earth.”
When this was done, the matrons led them away to another room lit by lamps burning perfumed oil, placed flasks of water and honeyed cakes on a table by a low wide bed, took away their shifts and left them alone together. They would be wakened when the sun rose next day and taken back to their homes.
The final act of devotion and offering remained to be performed. In the Palace of Kunisu the bull was still sacrificed in the open, the death stroke being delivered by a strong man who had practised with the sacred double-bladed axe on other cattle enough times beforehand to be sure that no mistake was made on the sacred day. On Kallista, the ceremony had been transferred to the newly constructed inner chapel, and so the act could not be carried out in the same way. The white bull offered by Merida, which had never been allowed to cover a cow, was despatched in a separate chamber fitted out for the purpose and its head, still dripping blood, was carried on a bronze tablet into the painted chamber and placed reverently on the white altar moments before the High Priestess entered to make the offering. She spoke the words:
“The powerful one is sacrificed to the All Powerful One Atana Potnya, Lady Mother. His blood soaks the altar that is She. From the two comes forth this life!”
In the chamber where the white bull had been killed, its carcass, suspended from a beam by ropes attached to a bar thrust behind the tendons of its rear hooves, was already being flayed and butchered. A large bowl contained the blood, some of which would fill a rhyton to be delivered to the Temple on the Hill; the rest would bring a good price when sold to farmers and wine makers for sprinkling on their land to make the crops grow. Choice cuts would be offered to the Governor and other dignitaries, and the heart would also be sent in a special stone dish to the High Priestess. The hide would provide leather for belts, harness and thongs for military and ceremonial equipment. Even the hooves and hair would not be wasted: carpenters and ship repairers always had need of glue, and wealthy households of stuffing for mattresses. Every item would be dedicated formally to a favoured deity before being enjoyed or put to other use. For weeks afterwards Merida grumbled to anyone who would listen that all he had received from his expensive offering were a few miserable slices of brisket, hardly enough to offer to the Lord Potheidan who everyone knew favoured white bulls.
Under a hot sun now riding high in the clear blue sky, seven ships lay in the harbour awaiting the arrival of the High Priestess for the ceremony of the Blessing of the Fleet. Five were Kallista vessels including two from Mitoia that had docked the previous evening. The other two were from Keftiu, one a warship on a training cruise which had put in to refill its water jars and take on fresh food, and the other a trader in port to take on Kallista figs and honey to add to the cargo of obsidian and marble it was carrying back to Keftiu from the quarries on Malluon and Hyria. Careful manoeuvring, supervised by Dareka, had aligned the ships with their sterns roped to bollards on the jetty and their prows held at anchor out into the harbour. This arrangement allowed each commander standing in his stern cabin to receive the blessing for his ship from the High Priestess as she processed along the jetty, and to pay his respects in return. A mass of smaller craft paddled around further out in the harbour showing none of this professional discipline. Sponge divers, spear fishermen and boys splashed or floated about among the boats, also hoping that the High Priestess might glance at them as she passed by. The harbour yard was filling with officials and other important people most of whom wore the white robes reserved for public festivals, and every rooftop, window or terrace in the town that had a view of the harbour was filled with onlookers. Namun, who was clinging to the mast of the Dolphin just above Sharesh, called down that he could even see people standing on top of the Red Cliffs to get a sight of the ships. A moment later he shouted excitedly:
“She’s coming! The High Priestess is coming!”
“Get down and get to your places, you two,” barked Typhis who was looking unusually tidy in a clean kilt and with his hair curled and glistening with oil.
The crowd near the harbour gate parted and the hubbub of noisy chatter fell away as people hushed and poked their neighbours to be quiet. Through the gateway came the temple novices with their baskets of petals and their cleaning brooms, followed by the matron servants of the Lady Mother softly sounding their bronze gongs. The crowd made way for them as they formed a long line on the jetty facing the moored ships. As she had done earlier in the day, Akusha preceded the High Priestess to ensure that all was properly arranged and ready for her entrance. Sharesh thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful and Namun had a catch in his throat as his thoughts went back to the last time he had seen his own mother. The High Priestess appeared in the gateway and the crowd fell silent. She moved slowly towards Akusha and took from her a silver vessel in which charcoal was glowing red. Holding this in her left hand she paced slowly along the jetty past the waiting ships, pausing by each to let fall a few grains of sweet herbs onto the coals and waft the smoke towards the stern cabins where the commanders stood, their hands and heads held in the gesture of reverence. Would the smoke drift towards the vessel or away? If towards, it was a sign that the Lady Mother extended her protection, but if away, then all on the ship should beware and make some extra offering for the sake of safety at sea.
It seemed to Namun that the High Priestess paused longest before the stern of the Dolphin where Potyr stood in the cabin with his eyes closed and a look of rapt serenity on his face. Tendrils of scented smoke wafted towards him. His eyes opened and he looked directly at the High Priestess for a few seconds, then bowed his head again. Did she respond with the slightest of nods? Namun thought so; perhaps Akusha had made it known to her that this was the ship of a devout servant of the Lady Mother, and also, perhaps, that her own son was on board and would shortly sail on her. The High Priestess moved on to the end of the line of ships and stood motionless, looking out to sea. Namun saw her lips move but could not hear her words. She raised the censor and strands of smoke drifted away towards the little waves, and disappeared in the salt air. There was a gasp of relief from the crowd and a murmur of content. The signs were good. The smoke had touched the ships and then the waves. The Lady Mother, here as Lady of the Seas and Winds, Posedeia, was pleased to extend her protection to the fleet. Silence fell again as the High Priestess and her attendants proceeded towards the harbour gate where the men waited with her chair to carry her back to the Temple on the Hill where she would pray alone in the sanctum and then, exhausted, sleep before the altar. Namun was left puzzled about the smoke from the censer and how tense and anxious the crowd seemed to be until they saw it had drifted towards the ships and then out to sea. Didn’t they know that the breeze always blew in that direction at this time of the day?
A series of loud booming notes from a triton shell broke the silence and signalled the beginning of the next part of the ceremony. Crewmen l
eapt to their posts; some ready to raise anchor, others to the bollards to stand by to cast off, while yet more assisted the notables in their white robes to get aboard and find their seats under the awnings which had been rigged to give shade to delicate skins unaccustomed to the glare of sun reflected from waves and salt-laden winds. The ships slipped away from the jetty in the order agreed with Dareka to avoid any collisions, and were paddled out because with so many ships moving in the harbour at once, clashes of oars would have been unavoidable. This meant extra hard work for the crews both in the laden cargo ship and the warship, and in the unladen vessels, too, because they were riding high. Except for the cargo ship, all had had the long, graceful tapering bowsprits reserved for these occasions fitted to their prows. The bowsprits bore the sacred symbols of crocus, star or butterfly; some of them all three. Pendants of crocus hung from awnings and dress lines strung from the mast above the awning, and on the largest ship, the Antelope, owned by the Kerameon family, were slung fore and aft from the mast to the bowsprit and the stern cabin, with more bunting fluttering from the masthead. Blue, yellow and red paint brightened the hulls, picking out the symbols of birds, lions and dolphins, proclaiming skills in navigation, fighting strength and speed through the water for their bearers. Captains and helmsmen carefully manoeuvred their vessels into two columns and the sweating crewmen slowly paddled them towards the harbour mouth scattering small boats and swimmers as they went, with the crowd cheering them on and throwing flowers and olives in their wake to wish them a symbolic good speed. The Dolphin brought up the rear of the column led by the Keftiu warship. While the important passengers invited by Merida to accompany him for the short voyage sat and chatted or waved to the crowd onshore, Potyr stood in front of his cabin next to Typhis, gazing keenly out to sea and holding his arms before his chest in the votive gesture to the Lady of the Oceans. One by one, the ships cleared the harbour mouth, changed paddles for oars, except for the cargo ship, unusual with its two steering oars, which raised sail, and rowed along the coast towards the declining sun for as long as it took for garlands to be cast into the sea, and the stomachs of the guests onboard could manage, and then returned to port, paddling across the harbour in the same order as they had left. In the softer light of late afternoon some tied up alongside the jetty while others dropped anchor out in the harbour where small boats were waiting to row their passengers ashore.
