Despite the Angels (3 page)

“Oh, Great Mother, I give you thanks and honour you. I will walk in your light even though I craft the sun metal. I will use it well.” She brought her hands to her forehead and poured out the symbolic moonlight over her upturned face.

Five minutes later Alessia was still standing in the sanctuary deep in thought. She had been pushed gently out of the circle by Planidi, who brushed out the circle in the dust, while reciting the closing prayers and picking up the nine pebbles. The oracle wiped them tenderly on a soft cloth and then put them in a leather pouch hanging from her belt. She turned to leave.

“Come on, Alessia, you have your answer. How can you have a problem now?” Alessia turned a worried face to her.

“How will I tell my parents? Especially Father, he loves the clay so much. And I made a really good pot last week, a vase. I decorated it with dolphins, they have so much movement, swimming around it.”

“It’s easy. You just say that the Mother spoke to you and tells you to use your skills in another medium. Mikolos is well known, your parents will not be afraid for you.”

“No, I know that. But they will know that I had this idea myself, the Mother doesn’t just stand in your path and say ‘GO’. You have to ask her the question. They’ll feel rejected that I asked at all.”

Planidi paused and looked upwards towards the moon which as the night deepened was beginning to dip down behind the sanctuary on the higher mountain that watched over the village. She wondered how to answer this question. Why indeed do we get ideas, she thought. Where do they come from?

“Sometimes people just have them, Planidi,” I could just hear her guide’s words. “You were all given free will and imagination. Sometimes there’s no mystery at all. But sometimes we suggest and sometimes we support. I’ll let you guess which this was. It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s all for the good and to help Trynor’s girl here to learn and grow.”

“You were guided by the Mother,” said Planidi, “who knows us all better than we know ourselves. Sometimes she speaks to us in our sleep and then we think it is our own idea. Tell your parents that and they will be content.”  It is wonderful to find humans who listen to us and hear us clearly, isn’t it?

It was useful that Alessia could hear me a bit when we were leaving Tylissos. She was plodding with a dull ache inside her, forcing herself not to look back, afraid that she would lose her resolve and return to the village.
I really felt for her, but I knew she should come to Malatos, so I danced and shimmered in front of her, calling out to her, pulling her attention forward so she looked ahead and allowed herself to look to the future. And it’s nearly starting, a more interesting lunch companion will be here soon, didn’t you say?”

“Yes,” said Jotin, “Danthys is on his way back. His father will be pleased, all the fine gold products have been sold.”

Alessia jumped to her feet and brushed crumbs off her skirt. “Rasifi is back, I must go. Can I help you back to your workshop?”

“No thank you, dear. I know this yard as well as my own hand. I will just sit for a few moments in the sun.” The scribe moved a little, closed her eyes and raised her face to the light.

Alessia trotted back to the gold workshop, where Rasifi, known to the town as ‘the goldsmith’s wife’, but actually the most skilled smith, was settling to her workbench. Alessia was growing very fond of Rasifi, who behaved to her like a foster mother and kept up the pretence that Mikolos was in charge of the workshop. It helped keep their two sons, Taklidon and Kadmos, in control, to let them think their father was the boss. They had accepted Alessia with good grace and apart from playing some practical jokes on her, as is usual with new apprentices, they were treating her as an equal.

Two days later, during the afternoon, there was a delighted roar from the workshop next door and a great deal of laughter. Minutes later Bullneck put his head around the door and said “Come out here and congratulate my son! All his fine bangles sold and orders for more!”

Bullneck was another goldsmith, a huge stocky man whose head seemed to sit right on his chest. He looked more like an oarsman than a fine craft worker, but anyone who assumed that was sadly mistaken. Alessia had been shown some of his work and it was, though she didn’t want to admit it, better than Mikolos and Rasifi’s. Rasifi led them all out into the bright courtyard where they squinted in the sudden light. Alessia could see an unfamiliar figure just behind Bullneck’s shoulder. He was standing facing the sun so the small double axe hanging round his neck on a fine cord glinted and caught Alessia’s eye. He had unusually light coloured hair, brown rather than black, and fair skin. He was wearing a short white skirt, pleated at the front, similar to the palace staff at Knossos. She wondered if he was on the staff of the Malatos palace and looked to see if he was wearing any insignia
Trynor was also looking and grinned at his old friend.

“Hello, Jotin. I told you I’d get her here and here we are! Now get him to look the right way and we’re sorted.”

.

“Danthys, my boy, it seems that the apprentice has eyes for you,” Bullneck rumbled. Alessia became aware of several pairs of eyes turned her way.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I just wondered if it was livery, I mean if he was a servant, oh no, I mean…” Alessia stopped, her face flaming, and looked at her feet. Rasifi’s two boys sniggered and their mother quelled them with a glare. There was a silence so total that Alessia could hear a lamb bleat on the distant hillside. Danthys spoke.

“It’s all right. It’s my own fault for wearing this. My mother is from Egypt and I visited her family last summer for my temple ceremony. The linen cloth is so cool I prefer it to wool.”

“It’s expensive. You should save it for special occasions” grumbled Bullneck.

“I think this is a special occasion, father,” said Danthys. The silence for a moment was even more profound and Alessia became aware of the sound of the waves against the rocks, or maybe it was the noise inside her own ears. She looked up at Danthys. He was looking at her as though there was no-one else around. He smiled and she felt his smile pulling on the edges of her mouth, so that it too turned up and she found herself grinning at him as though they were old friends. Then there was a sound of retching and everyone looked at Kadmos who had two fingers in his mouth and was pretending to vomit. His brother laughed and was joined by everyone else, except Alessia and Danthys, who just went on smiling at each other, until Bullneck said

“All right, that’s enough, my boy, your trip is over.  I need to discuss the design of the sacrificial cup with you, or we will have nothing to show to the Queen.”

Danthys touched his chest in a farewell gesture, bowed slightly from the hips and turned away. Alessia stood in the doorway looking after him as he walked back to his own workplace and wondered about what had just happened. She wondered why he seemed familiar.

“Because of the linen skirt,” said Trynor, “you don’t remember, but we planned that you would see his skirt. Linen is so rare here, it was a pretty safe bet. We were right. And of course he has been looking at your necklace.”

Alessia put her hand up and felt her pendant. She had made it herself out of a tiny bit of leftover clay, at the end of one of her last days as a potter. There had only just been time to glaze it. It was a tiny eight petalled flower, a copy of one she had seen once on a vase. It was white and showed up in contrast to her skin where it lay on a leather thong between her breasts.

Many times over the next few months Alessia saw Danthys. Sometimes the two families ate together on the shady side of the courtyard, Mikolos and Bullneck sharing memories of past exploits, teasing each other about their failings and including their wives and children in the banter. Alessia got used to being considered one of the family and stopped blushing when attention was focus
sed on her. Unless it was Danthys. He had only to look her way for her to feel that the whole world was looking at her. Yet she didn’t care. Let them look, she thought, what harm? But she was never alone with him. Alessia began to wonder if Danthys was really interested in her, or if his relaxed friendliness was simply because she was part of Mikolos’ family. She missed her sisters and because she was so busy working she had not had the opportunity to meet anyone who could become a new friend. Now she was in her new home, watching Rasifi start some of the preparations for the celebrations of the grape harvest and remembering sadly how she and her old friends had wound vine leaves into each others’ hair last year. Rasifi noticed that she had gone quiet.

“Your first festival with us – quite an event!” Rasifi came over to Alessia and put a large arm across her shoulders, hugging Alessia to her. “But your first away from your people. It’s hard, remembering. But you can use that remembering to make contact with them, of a sort.”

“How?” Alessia was puzzled. How could she make contact with people who were so far away?

“Come outside with me.” Rasifi led the way out of the house and down the street to where it widened out and they could see the darkening sky, kept brighter by the rising moon.

“It’s the grape harvest at your home too, isn’t it? And they’ll be missing you too, won’t they?” said Rasifi, “They’ll be thinking of you just as much as you are thinking of them. So look at the moon and ask her to look down on them and send your love to them. They will hear, I’m sure of it.” Rasifi raised her arms to the moon and closed her eyes. Alessia copied her and in her mind sent the messages as Rasifi had suggested. As she did she felt a strange happiness steal over her, almost as though her mother had crept in to watch her as she used to do when Alessia was very small. She sighed and opened her eyes. Rasifi was smiling at her.

“Well, did it work? Did they hear you?”

“I can hardly believe it, but I think my mother did,” said Alessia slowly. It would be lovely to know, she thought. When I see her next I will ask.

“She heard you, Alessia. I made sure of that. She looked out of the window and saw the moon and thought of you. They haven’t forgotten.” Trynor stroked Alessia and faded out.

“So now we can concentrate on getting ready for the festival. Come on, we have some cooking to do.”

The main celebrants of the grape harvest were, of course, the people who worked with the grapes and who made it into wine. But it was a happy day for everyone and everyone made the most of it, gathering in the late afternoon in the open area between the town and the palace. There would be bull-dancing to ensure a plentiful harvest this year and to keep the vines in good health for the next season. There would be a procession of children, dressed up in colourful costumes, usually with a grape theme, with prizes for the most imaginative. There would be feasting, plenty to drink, bonfires, singing and music-making.

Rasifi told Alessia that she missed her daughter Elena most acutely whenever she had to make herself presentable, as having another’s eye to help apply the rouge and kohl was so much more reliable than depending on the images in a mirror.

“I can be quite a sight! Ours is a good smooth mirror, but it is still not as clear as the real thing. It is good to have another female eye in the house. Those men think make-up does itself and make a fuss when I try to be accurate and take my time. I hope you don’t mind helping me?” Alessia assured her that it would please her too, to have someone to share the preparations with and told Rasifi about her sisters and friends back at home, how they had used vine-leaves last year. So they sent Kadmos off to find them some leaves, while Alessia helped Rasifi into her long decorated skirt and fastened the apron on top. Rasifi grumbled about her weight as they squeezed her into her bodice and it strained across the shoulders.

“I swear there is more of me tumbling out the front than even the Mother Goddess has need of,” she panted, as she surveyed herself in the polished bronze mirror. But at least I do not need any rouge to accentuate my breasts, not like you, dear.”

Alessia put on her skirt and bodice and Rasifi pulled on the laces on the bodice for her, so that her breasts would be pulled together to show off her cleavage. Then they got out the rouge and highlighted their lips and nipples, Rasifi using her artist’s eye to put just enough between Alessia’s breasts.

“Well, if he doesn’t notice you now he’s not a real man and you’ll be better off without him,” she said, as she wiped her fingers on a cloth. Alessia pretended not to hear as she took out her kohl and handed it to Rasifi to outline her eyelids for her. Then Kadmos was back with two trailing lengths of vine full of leaves. While the two women wound the leaves through each other’s hair, Kadmos watched and gave superfluous advice when anything went wrong. Eventually they were ready and came out into the main room to look over the food they would bring to the celebrations. Mikolos caught hold of Rasifi’s hand and spun her round, looking her up and down and grinning widely.

“Not only a wonderful cook and an expert goldsmith, but a beautiful woman too!” He pulled his wife into an embrace. Alessia was surprised to find herself spun around like Rasifi, as Taklidon grabbed her hand.

“And my mother is teaching you beauty as well as gold working!” Taklidon put his hands on Alessia’s back and pulled her towards him. She stiffened, bending her forearms in front of her chest and turning her head to one side to avoid his mouth. But she kept her voice light and tried to put laughter into her tone as she said yes, Rasifi had taught her a lot, but that the best dish she had made for the feast was from a recipe of her own mother’s and that she hoped he and Kadmos would like it. Taklidon took his hands from her as though he had been stung and strutted out of the room, followed by a peal of laughter from Kadmos. Rasifi, pulling her clothes back into their former neatness, sent Kadmos after Taklidon to bring him back to help carry the food.