The 22 Letters (10 page)

There was a silence, and it was the King who spoke.

“Let us see her face,” said the King.

Beth fearfully lifted up her head, and looked straight into the face of the King, with its curled beard, powerful nose, and the two deep black eyes that seemed to be weighing her up.

“She would seem,” the King spoke at last, “to be suited to become one of our maidens of the temple. Arrange it, High Priest!”

And Beth looked at her father, and could not tell whether she saw relief, sorrow, or pride in his face.

5

The Court of Minos

Nun, the sailor, on the island of Crete—The myth of the Minotaur, the bull-monster—Amber-traders of Scandinavia—The Chaldean prophesies destruction

Sunset was coloring the western slopes of Mount Ida as Nun steered toward the harbor of Amnisos, the port of Knossos. His crew had spent as restless a night as he had on Thira, the ill-omened isle tormented by drought, bemused by strong wine, and shaken by the terrible upheavals in its bowels. They were as glad as he was to return to the ship at dawn and push off into the open sea away from the menacing plume of smoke that hung low in the cool dawn air. Though it meant a long day's row to reach Crete, the farther they were from Thira the happier the men were. But the Chaldean was silent, or slept, all the day, and Nun was surprised to see him standing beside him on the poop now.

“That is Knossos?” asked the Chaldean.

Nun was glad to be in the position of a man of experience again. “Knossos?” he said. “No, what you see is only the port. The palace of King Minos lies inland, and—thank the gods!—I have no business there. We'll spend a night or two in the port, where they treat foreigners well enough even if they
are
a bit officious. Just long enough to discharge our cargo and for the crew to get drunk. Then we'll buy a few knick-knacks and be off again. The less we have to do with the court the better.”

“But
my
business lies with the court,” said the sage in a low voice. Nun looked at him sharply. As he had feared, his passenger was going to involve him in more affairs that he would rather avoid.

“I don't think I can help you with that,” said Nun. “I'm not an ambassador, only a simple sea captain.”

“Is it so difficult to obtain an audience with King Minos?” asked the sage.

“You wait and see,” replied Nun. “There's not a city wall on the island, they say, but Minos is more difficult to get at than the King of Troy, for all his walls and turrets. And here comes the first obstacle.”

They were still an hour out of the harbor, but from out of the lee of the island of Dia came a ship of thirty oars, manned with armed warriors, heading to cut them off.

Nun gave the order for the oarsmen to easy, and they thankfully rested on their oars. “No use fooling around with the coast guard here,” he said. “The first time I put into Amnisos I didn't like the look of them and decided to race them to port. Nearly got rammed and sent to the fishes.”

They waited until the other vessel hove to within speaking distance.

“What is your business with the Kingdom of Minos?” came the hail, and the speaker repeated it in several languages to make sure the visitor understood.

“Cargo of cedar wood from Gebal!” Nun called over the waves. “Passport from His Royal Highness King Abishram!”

“Where's the passport, Bos'un? Let's have it ready!”

The boatswain heaved the slab of inscribed stone out of the ballast at the bottom of the boat and held it in readiness as the Minoan vessel came alongside. The oars were shipped on the port side, and the vessels came together. An official, helped by two soldiers, jumped aboard. He glanced at the cargo of cedar beams and then at the stone.

“What's
that
?” he sniffed contemptuously.

“Ship's documents,” replied Nun shortly. “Can't you read hieroglyphics?”

“You Giblites!” sneered the officer. “You've got the insolence to bring out a lump of stone with Egyptian scrawls on it, for His Invincible Majesty King Minos's edification! Your documents are out of date! Anything to declare?”

“No,” said Nun, keeping his temper. He was used to Minoan officialdom.

“What's this, then?” demanded the official, looking at the Chaldean.

“My passenger,” Nun answered. “He's not a
thing,
he's a scholar and a gentleman. I'm sure he has his own documents.”

With great dignity, the Chaldean produced from his pack a tablet of baked clay, inscribed with writing and sealed with an impression of a lion and a bull. The official looked at it.

“Nail writing!” muttered the official, but he seemed to be impressed.

Without another word he turned and jumped back into his boat, followed by the two soldiers. “Carry on into port!” he shouted at them. “You look harmless, anyhow.” And the coastguard vessel pushed off.

Nun, already fuming at this first sample of the vexations of port after the freedom of the seas, gave orders to continue toward the land.

They rowed on in the direction of the harbor. As they neared the jumble of quays and warehouses, Nun strained his eyes to make out how he should approach and where he should tie up. Then he ordered the crew to rest on their oars again, and spoke to them roughly.

“Now listen!” he barked. “Especially any of you who haven't been here before. Yonder's Amnisos, and that's the island of Crete if you didn't know, and somewhere between the mountains is the palace of King Minos. We're going to be the guests of the Cretans for a few days. You'll find them not a bad lot, even though they
are
Westerners and don't have our way of looking at things. But they're touchy, like all these new nations, see? Lucky they don't understand our language, most of them, but watch what you say about them all the same. And they're fussy about official things. This isn't one of these free-and-easy ports where you can run ashore and get drunk and misbehave yourselves as soon as we tie up. It may take hours before we're allowed ashore at all. Don't misunderstand me—I don't care what happens to a single man jack of you! For all I care any one of you can spend the rest of his life in a Cretan jail—
I
shan't come and bail you out! But I happen to want a crew to take this ship home again. So I'm warning you—watch your step and watch your tongues, or you may find yourselves thrown to the bull-monster!”

The men had been listening to Nun's speech with little enough attention, like most sailors and schoolboys when they're being told to behave, but at the mention of the bull-monster they began to exchange looks and mutter remarks.

“What's this bull-monster, then?” whispered the youngest deckhand, with rounded eyes.

“Aha!” cackled an old seaman. “Just you be a good boy, sonny, or it'll get you, sure as fate.”

“Don't give us that old story!” said a younger oarsman contemptuously, and spat over the side.

“All right, then,” retorted the older man, “I had a mate who saw it.”

“I've seen a bull,” said the boy.

“Not like this one. Eats men, it does—specially young lads, my mate said.”

“How did
he
know?” the oarsman put in.

“He
ought
to. He got ate up himself!”

The boy's eyes grew wider and wider. Then he burst out: “Look, if the bull ate him, how—” But he was interrupted by the captain's order to pull on their oars. The younger oarsman, however, went on muttering as he rowed: “Don't give us them bull stories.”

Nun did not know himself what the truth was about the famous bull of Minos, or about the people who were taken to the palace of Knossos and were never heard of again. For himself, he would keep clear of it. And the business of entering harbor now took his whole attention.

Another small boat put out from the shore and came alongside. Another official came on board and asked the same questions, and whether anybody on board had the plague or any other sickness. Nun said they were all healthy and hoped they would not catch anything in Crete, but the official was not amused. Only then were they allowed to enter the harbor mouth. The official gave directions, and Nun gave orders to the oarsmen to pull together, to hold water one side, to back water, and at last to ship oars as they came smoothly alongside the quay. Nun heard a sigh of relief go up from the oarsmen as the long voyage came to its end; but he felt little relief when he saw the Cretan officials waiting for him on the quay. It was getting late and the officials did not look too keen on clearing another ship and cargo as the evening fell—but this was Amnisos, and things had to be done properly even if it might take all night. He felt thankful that his cargo was only cedar beams. The Cretans were great ones for making lists of things, but even they could not take long to account for forty logs. If it had been a load of corn they might have insisted on counting every grain.

Then Nun remembered the Chaldean, and his heart sank further. A captain was responsible for his passengers as well as his cargo. There would probably be endless arguments about this stranger. There he was, standing upright and silent on the afterdeck, his baggage at his feet, waiting with dignified patience to step ashore.

“Let's get this done, then!” came the voice of yet another official from the quayside. “Unless you'd rather stay aboard all night.”

Nun sprang from the deck on to the quay where the official was standing with two scribes. The scribes had pens and portable ink bottles, and they were holding large fragments of broken pottery to take down their rough notes on.

“Name?” snapped the official. “Hailing from? Number of crew?—no, never mind their names, can't expect us to write down all this outlandish stuff. Just make sure you don't leave any behind when you sail. Type of cargo? Quantity? Who's it consigned to? Oh, indeed, for the royal palace itself, is it? Well, you don't expect His Majesty to come down and thank you for it himself, do you?”

Nun did his best to answer the questions, many of which he had answered twice already, without losing his temper. And then the official's eye fell on the patiently waiting Chaldean. “What have you got there?” he asked suspiciously.

“Passenger, from Chaldea,” Nun replied shortly.

“Oh yes?” sniffed the official. “And what's
his
business here?”

“Better ask him yourself,” said Nun. “He wants to see the King.”

“Wants to see the King, does he?” the official sneered. “And does he think the King wants to see
him,
by any chance? Comes here deck passage with a load of lumber and wants to see the King! I'm a busy man myself, and he'll be lucky if I can spare him a few moments some time tomorrow. But he'll have to be looked into. Here, you! Where's your credentials?” he called roughly to the Chaldean.

The Chaldean said nothing, but once more drew from his wallet the baked tablet with the cuneiform writing on it and handed it to Nun, who passed it to the official.

The official gave it a contemptuous glance. “No good showing me that nail-writing either. This'll need translating tomorrow, if we can get an interpreter. Er—just one moment.”

Nun saw his expression change as if his eye had fallen upon something unexpected. The official turned his back, raised the tablet to catch the light of the setting sun, and peered at it closely. Nun, looking over his shoulder, saw that it was the seal of the lion and the bull at the bottom of the tablet that he was examining.

When the official turned to face them again he seemed to be a different person. Holding the tablet reverently in his hands he bowed over it in the direction of the Chaldean, a strained smile on his face. “Pray tell His Excellency,” he said to Nun, still smiling, “that he is most welcome to Amnisos, and that the best accommodation we can provide is at his disposal, unless he wishes to proceed immediately to Knossos.”

Nun was amused at this sudden change of behavior, all apparently due to the mysterious lion and bull seal. He was even more amused when the Chaldean gravely said to him in the same language, “Pray convey to the servant of King Minos my thanks for his welcome, and say that we accept his offer of accommodation for the night.” It was not only the reflection of the sunset clouds that made the official's face look red.

After that, the port formalities proceeded with a smoothness and speed that amazed Nun. A guard of soldiers was put on the quay near the ship, and he was told that it would be well looked after and protected from thieves; the sailors were allowed to go and enjoy themselves in the town, and were even given cheerful advice about the best taverns. And Nun found himself being politely escorted with the Chaldean to a superior guest house that was obviously reserved for none but the most important travelers. It was built squarely and solidly of stone and wooden beams, and the walls inside were covered with colorful paintings of fish and dolphins. Soon they were being served with food and wine by attentive slaves who carried bowls and jars of fine pottery, and every piece of the dinner service was decorated with designs of octopus or flowers. As he lay back on his couch, Nun began to think that life ashore in Crete was worth lingering for after all—though a Chaldean astrologer was a queer companion for a sailor to spend a night ashore with. And, indeed, the sage seemed to become more and more remote and withdrawn, and made only absent-minded replies to Nun's attempts to talk.