Was it my imagination or did the little man sink to his knees a little too slowly? I narrowed my eyes as he leant over the granite scrying bowl built into the floor at my feet, to brush his lips against the billowing hem of my ceremonial skirt.​

With the formalities completed, the man, called Andiru apparently, sat back on his heels but kept his head bowed as he began his spiel. I concealed a sigh, taking in his bald pate and the cheap mix of madder and woad that coloured his tunic in a garish approximation of the rich purple that dyed my jacket and alternating tiers of my skirts. At least he acknowledged his place as he droned on. His eyes remained upon the floor tiles and his head bowed so deep that his face was completely hidden by his bald pate. I allowed myself a satisfied nod.​

My eyes slid upwards as this Andiru person continued, to the porch at the back of the room and the ochre-painted pillars that framed the afternoon sky. Sunlight streamed gold between them, illuminating the chapel, as was fitting for the most sacred space in the temple precinct. Beyond this, the flat roofs of the sacred complex spread out before me, with the city laid out in streets and box-like houses beyond until it met the sea. The turquoise waters of the coast soon gave way to the grey-blue of deeper water before it met the salmon-streaked turquoise of the sky far to the north.​

I glanced to my right, where Minos, the leader of the Achaean mercenaries I had employed but four moons earlier, stood unobtrusively in the shadows, the bronze of his armour dull without sunlight to make it shine. Minos’s eyes met mine, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Heat seared my cheeks, and I returned my glance to the horizon.​

Does he yearn to sail back to his homeland in Achaea? Do his men?​

“But to own a truth, Mother Medjasse, most of my men would rather deliver their sacred portions to a chapel dedicated to the Earthshaker than even the Great Temple of the Lady of Prophecy.” Andiru’s tone was so polite that it took a moment before the enormity of what he had said sank in. When it did, outrage fired my veins.

“You dare insult the Divine Lady?” I cursed myself for asking. Andiru had clearly dared just that.

“Given that the Earthshaker and his Blessed Son have protected the sailors and dockers I represent since Thera sank into the sea, it surely comes as no surprise, Lady Mother.”

There was a time when even to whisper such blasphemy would doom Andiru and his seafolk both.

The words crystallised in the air, impossible to unsay. I tensed, my muscles rigid as the soapstone throne upon which I sat.

Behind the squat form of this upstart docker, the northern sea whispered. It once lay many days’ sail over that horizon, nearly halfway to Achaea. Thera, the Island that was no more, destroyed by a blast of fire and ash erupting from the bowels of the earth. None of the Priesthood’s offerings or prayers had averted the earthshaker’s wrath, whilst the Lady of Prophecy had failed to utter a single warning before it struck or explain what offence had so enraged the Divines in the first place. 

This failure loomed over every Great Mother of Knossos from that day to this. Even my own family - nobles famed for our loyalty to the old ways - muttered behind our hands about the son of the earthshaker at every festival of my childhood. Any failure or folly a Great Mother committed weakened the temple’s authority that little bit more, until all wondered if the next misstep would destroy it completely.

That misstep is not going to be mine.    

I rose from my throne, taking enough time for the silence to build before advancing upon Andiru until I could stare down upon the bald spot atop his head. He shrank back for a moment when we locked eyes but rose to his feet in a manner that would have been unthinkable for any layman in the presence of my predecessors. I snapped my fingers.

“Should I escort the mariner’s representative to the cells, Mother Medjasse?” Minos’s lithe form advanced until he stood beside me. His sword blade flashed bronze in the light of the sinking sun, a fine match for the quicksilver shine of his eyes.

“Does the Lady now require foreign louts to force her will upon Knossos?” Andiru stood firm as Minos stalked closer. Despite myself, I was impressed. The Achaean warrior was the taller man by a good half a head, and although not burly, his limbs sang with a wiry strength forever poised to spring. By the door, a younger priestess gasped, as much in delight as horror, when Minos pressed his sword against Andiru’s neck.

What has the Mistress of Novices been teaching her charges that even so handsome a package as Minos’s face can so blind them to the danger he poses?

“Mother Medjasse, I must protest . . .” Andiru began.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you must.” I waved a hand and Minos stepped back, his sword still at the ready.

“Have no fear, Lord Andiru. I have no desire to imprison the chosen man of the Seafarer’s guild.” I smiled when Andiru expelled a ragged breath and ignored Minos’s raised eyebrow. Then I continued.

“Quite the contrary, I am delighted to invite you to stay in the temple as our most honoured guest. You will find the suite we keep for diplomatic visitors quite comfortable and such a stay should put an end to talk of acrimony between us among the populace.”

Minos snapped his fingers. Immediately, two guards stood in the doorway. The little docker’s eyes took flame.

“You would hold the head of one of Knossos’s most powerful guilds a prisoner?”

I shook my head, swallowing bile.

Does he really think artisans can claim the protections reserved for nobility simply because others of his kind admire him?

“Naturally not. I am merely extending to you the hospitality of the Divine Lady, as is my duty as the Lady Mother of her Temple in Knossos. However, given the rumours of heresy that surround your guild, I fear I must insist upon your accepting it.”

Andiru’s eyes bulged, but he had the sense not to resist when Minos and his men restrained him, causing my young priestess to quiver with excitement, her eyes locked upon Minos. I frowned.

“To scotch such rumours, I will be delighted to gift the services of Sister . . .” I glanced at the girl, groping for her name, until her thin face and cow-brown eyes nudged my memory. “Jadiire to your guild house.”

Best keep the girl far from where Minos may turn her head.

The young novice dropped her gaze to the floor tiles whilst her hand fluttered about her face, batting at a stray lock of limp black hair.

“She and two of Minos’s men will grace your guildsmen with their presence. With a temple Sister leading your members in worship, all will see they have no occasion to dabble in heresy. Any misplaced zeal such a charge may provoke against your folk will naturally be restrained by the presence of two temple guards dwelling in their guild house. What could be more perfect?”

Minos laughed, then gave Andiru a shove that sent him sprawling. Only the two guards behind him spared the impertinent dock worker a nasty fall before they dragged him out.

“I’ll send two of my best with the lass by sundown. Will that give you enough time to gather everything you need?” He turned towards Sister Jadiire, but the girl managed only an incoherent stammer before taking to her heels.

“Adroitly done, Mother Medjasse.” Minos grinned. I pressed my lips together until they ached with the effort of resisting the urge to smile back.

“I’m so glad you approve, Captain Minos. You will have no problem keeping the temple secure with two men absent and Andiru to guard?”

Minos’s eyes narrowed. Ice stirred deep in my belly.

“Mother Medjasse, I have mentioned before that my men find it troublesome to guard the temple properly whilst they are obliged to billet outside the compound.”

Of course. Why should this man, alone among all, not wish to tear off a chunk of the Lady’s power for himself?

“Troublesome or no, only those born on Divine Lady’s island may reside within her temples.”

“Mother, I have not led my men through storms, sieges and battlefields by ignoring their concerns.” Minos shook his head. “I regret any affront to the Divine Lady, but if they are to defend the temple, my men must billet inside the walls.”

            I turned, hoping none of my rage tainted my diplomatic smile. Along the walls, flickering torchlight lent illusory life to the painted basilisks and bulls, goddesses and gryphons who had stood witness to High Priestesses’ deeds for generations. Was it my fancy that they writhed in abhorrence at what was now being wrought?

            “No foreigner has ever so defiled the Great Temple. Only the Lady’s own dwell within its walls.”

            Minos’s smile flashed too many teeth.

            “Alas, in the city below too many of the Lady’s own appear eager to burn her temple to the ground. Is that a defilement you would prefer?”

            Our eyes locked. My green agates fought his frozen starlight.

            For a moment the result hung in the balance, then his gaze dropped. Minos hitched his belt, turning it this way and that so the sword hanging from it shone in the light.

            “I engaged you for your military expertise. You would do well to leave the management of the people to me. Your men sleep outside the temple building.” My heart lurched, but I curved my lips into a smile, daring him to refuse.

            Minos’s laugh put me in mind of thunder on a heavy summer evening.

            “As the Lady Mother commands. The inner sanctum of Knossos is scarce a place for a Wanax’s second son after all.”

            A second son. Of course. Why else would Minos be so far from home, commanding brigands rather than royal retainers?

            Memories of the girl I had once been ambushed me. The youngest of five sisters with a high name but little wealth to fall back on, only an ability to make myself useful to the right seniors had opened the way to my present position, much to the chagrin of my wealthier-born peers. Not that they remained within the temple long enough for their resentment to fester once my advancement had commenced.

            The fading sunlight flashed against Minos’s sword again. My lips twitched.

            Like may meet like in the strangest places.

            Then the priestesses whose falls paved the way for my own rise swam into my memory, their eyes alight with anticipation. Chills pricked my skin.

            “And a second son is all you are.” I half spat the words. His smile faltered, and fear fluttered through my veins at the expression that replaced it. I raised my chin. “Aye, an Achaean princeling and a foreigner here. Neither are realities you would do well to forget, Captain Minos.”

Minos’s eyes shone hard as quartz.

            “Naturally.” His obeisance was immaculate. “Nothing has changed, Mother Medjasse; you may depend upon that.”

            Calm reigned in the days that followed. The temple continued its work, and the city remained tranquil. Sister Jadiire reported that the seafolk accepted proper religious instruction with a semblance of grace, unlike their guild head in his gilded cage.

​

One moon later, Minos dragged a prisoner into my chapel. The wretch was familiar to all within the temple, a servant of Andiru who brought him wine and other delicacies from home. His split lip and the welt that already closed one eye, to say nothing of the relish with which Minos forced him to his knees, sent a chill through my bones.

“I take it there is a reason why you have chosen to abuse the servant of the temple’s honoured guest, Captain.”

“Honoured guests do not typically plot the demise of their hosts, Mother Medjasse,” Minos replied. He handed me a writing board bearing the seal of the Temple of the city of Phaistos, far to the south. I winced. Phaistos ranked second only to Knossos itself and had been looking to become first since before my novitiate began. “We discovered this on him and after I’d . . . persuaded him to confide its contents to me I came straight here.”

Each moment flowed into the next slow as honey whilst my fingers fumbled with the leather thongs tying the writing board closed. My heart sank when I succeeded, and the two halves fell open upon my lap, laying plain a message scratched upon purest beeswax.

The temple of Phaistos would go so far? Not only to overthrow worship of the Divine Lady of Phaistos in favour of this Son of the Earthshaker, but then to seek to raze her temple here in Knossos? And all for a fool like Andiru?

Minos snapped his fingers, and his guards dragged the servant out of the room. He remained, grinning openly.

            “One would expect Lord Andiru to have learned discretion.” He flopped down onto a bench and poured himself a goblet of my wine. “It was his devotion to this Son of the Earthshaker that got him imprisoned; you would have thought he’d baulk before putting his faith in him a second time. One can almost admire the optimism.”

            I rolled my eyes.

            “I see nothing admirable in allowing a desire for vengeance to overcome one’s common sense, or one’s piety.” I shuddered, partly at the narrowed eyes boring into me from over the rim of Minos’s goblet.

            “Still, it should be a small matter for you to waylay their warband in the mountain passes. Let them feel the might of the Great Lady.” I managed.

            “Ah, Mother Medjasse, I fear you misunderstand. Our arrangement saw us subdue your enemies in Knossos and secure your temple’s rule here. With that achieved, my men and I had thought to leave Krete. Now you would have us traipse across mountains in summer to ambush whole armies?” Minos gave a hapless shrug utterly at odds with his wolfish smile.

            I gritted my teeth, ignoring the icy fingers clutching at my innards.

            “Do you think they could be persuaded by the prospect of the loot they could acquire in the razing of Phaistos, to say nothing of another instalment of your agreed payment . . . “

Minos shook his head.

            “Payment, loot? Such things can be found in any Island throughout the Wine Dark Sea. No, if my men are to continue to support you, we . . . they . . .will need a longer-lasting inducement. Some reason to give Knossos their permanent allegiance.”

Watching Minos sipping my wine, the thought of him sailing over the horizon never to return tantalised like the coming of spring.

            “I take it you have something in mind, Captain.”

            “What man will not fight to defend his home? I would see my men no longer mercenaries, but the honour guard of the Wanax of Knossos and his wife, its High Priestess.”

            I had thought myself immune to Minos’s audacity. Instead, I struggled to force a glare through eyes widened with shock.

“Or we could let the Divine Lady prove her valour against Phaistos’s war band?”

“Do not imagine that the Divine Lady is helpless to defend her own.” My shock had receded, leaving rage to sear through my veins. “You go too far if you think anyone other than her chosen can rule Knossos. And Wanax?” I all but spat the word. “If your ambitions involve acquiring that title, I suggest you return to Achaea. It has no meaning here.”

Before Minos could reply, I snapped my fingers and a priestess sidled into the room.

“Send word to the knife man. Representative Andiru’s treason is proved beyond doubt; his life is forfeit. Let it be done in the Court of the Bull leapers at sunset, where all can see what becomes of those who betray the Divine Lady.”

The priestess bowed before all but running from the room. Not that I blamed her. Such an event required much preparation, and I had given her barely enough time to complete it. Then a slow clap began from the table behind me.

“You are still here, Captain Minos?” I turned to catch him draining his goblet, grinning as if the entire situation were a performance put on for his entertainment.

“Not for long, Mother Medjasse. Much as it has been a pleasure serving your Temple these last months, I believe the time has come to depart. Unless you have reconsidered your answer to my proposal?”

“The temple would have to burn down first.”

Minos’s smile narrowed along with his eyes.

“Indeed? Then my men and I had best return to the harbour. Should you change your mind, I will be with my flagship; there is much to do if we are to catch the dawn tide.” He turned and left without another word. I poured the dregs of the wine from the pitcher to my own goblet and gulped it down with a single swallow, in celebration or to stifle a growing dread I knew not.

I must have tarried in that room longer than I ought, for the young priestess who broke my reverie did so with the tidings that Andiru’s execution had been carried out. I nodded along with her description of how his remains were flung into the harbour lest his spirit contaminate the city. Uneasiness squirmed in my bowels, growing throughout her recitation of the cleansing rites.

“You say he was eviscerated publicly? I heard no cheer. Have the people of Knossos grown squeamish?”

“Apparently so, Mother,” the girl gnawed at her lip, her fingers twisting around one another like so many snakes. “The knifeman displayed the entrails as usual, but the crowd remained still.”

I dismissed her, wishing the apprehension gathering in my belly could be banished as easily. Instead, it haunted me, distracting me from my duties and robbing me of sleep when I retired to my bed.

Despite such shadows, I must have dozed. When I woke, darkness had fallen. I shot up in bed at the sting of smoke in my eyes and throat. Shouts and the occasional scream echoed through the night. In the span of a breath, I leapt from my bed, my feet pounding along corridor floors that echoed the slamming of my heart until I reached a porch that overlooked the city.

Fire engulfed the temple storehouses that lay outside the walls, lighting up the sky. Sprays of sparks flew into the air, threatening to ignite the sacred precinct even without the assistance of the mob that filled the streets. Shouts rent the night, louder than any heard at the most raucous festival I ever led. Instead of joy, however, the air crackled with outrage and obscenities.

Somewhere a man screamed, then a woman, then both were cut off by the roar of an exultant crowd. Men surged through the streets, hurled themselves at the temple gates only to fall back, many with spears between their ribs.

A watery cheer passed through the priestesses beside me, but even the dullest saw that slingshots and stones had taken their toll on our men too. The lines that reformed atop the wall were thinner than before, whilst the human tide beneath us showed no sign of ebbing.

They surged with a great cry, echoed by shrieks from my priestesses. I turned to reprove their cowardice, only for my eye to fall upon what I took to be a standard amid the human sea below us.

Such it was, of a kind. In the centre of the mob, who cheered anew whenever it was brandished, the head of the Sister Jadiire topped a stake stained near black with her blood. Its hair had been hacked off, whilst the neck ended in a jagged gash that appeared sawed through rather than chopped off with a blow or two. Much as I hoped she had expired before such indignities, the rictus scream and bulging eyes of the horror that had been her face suggested otherwise.

The mob crashed against the walls once more. This time a few stragglers made it onto the walls before being dispatched by temple guards now reduced to a mere handful.

It took all my self-control to tear my gaze from the spectacle below me to the bay beyond. The calm of the ocean appeared almost to mock me, but Achaean warships still floated upon its surface.

“The temple would have to burn down first.” I had said only hours before. Now the stench of smoke invaded my nostrils, whilst my ears were filled with the blood-hungry howls of a mob. I exhaled, long and slow, a portion of my soul leaving my body with it.

“Let a runner be sent to Captain Minos’s flagship.”

“Forgive me, Lady Mother, but did he not leave your service this . . .”

“Yes, yes.” I flicked a hand as if batting the priestess’s words out of the air. “Instruct the runner to tell Captain Minos that Mother Medjasse accepts his offer.”

I can always lace his wedding wine with hemlock.

Minos suppressed the riot with remarkable ease. So remarkable that my suspicions still roil when I think on it, for what good that ever did. Whatever the truth of the riot’s origins, he marched into my presence under the pre-dawn sky. Every plate of his armour was blood-fouled, but his face glowed with triumph.

“Fear not, beloved wife to be. None of this is mine.”

A pity.

“You have my eternal gratitude, not to mention that of the Divine Lady, Lord Consort to be.”

“I believe my men will prefer Wanax to be.” He frowned.

            “But our people do not,” I said. “They understand is that the High Priestess remains the chosen of the Great Lady whether a man stands by her side or no.”

            “No one in the presence of the great Mother Medjasse could doubt that, so there should be no issue with that man taking the title of Wanax. Call it a foreign affectation.” He handed me a goblet of wine from the tray brought in by a still-trembling priestess, his smile daring me to refuse. “Shall we toast then to the impending nuptials of Knossos’s Mother Priestess and its Wanax?”

            I hesitated until Jadiire’s lifeless face swam before my eyes, then I clinked my goblet against his.

            “No need for forebodings, Mother Medjasse. You are the High Priestess of Knossos, mistress of all you survey. Nothing has changed; upon that you have the word of your future husband.”

            Another moon saw the city calm, and I stood at the Entrance portico to farewell Minos’s forces as they marched out to face those of Phaistos. Their numbers were augmented by recruits from the city, including several faces I remembered from the riot. I forced a smile and bid them all farewell as was expected. It widened at the thought that, were the worst to happen, my soon-to-be husband may not be the first overmighty leader to fall in battle ere his pride could challenge the divines.

And should the Divine Lady be not so kind . . .

I closed my fingers over the leather pouch that hung from my waist, pressing their tips against the solid curves of a clay bottle secreted within. Not that it needed to be large - hemlock juice can kill even if but a few drops are drunk.

            A fitting wedding gift for my husband-to-be.

            Half a moon later, one of Minos’s lieutenants staggered into my presence - dust, sweat and all. The tidings he brought triggered celebrations that are echoed annually to this day, the Feast of the Lady’s Victory.

​

My future husband’s envoy placed the ashes of Phaistos’s icon to the Son of the Earthshaker at my feet. He described the sacking of the temple which used to house it and spoke with relish of the razing of Phaistos. He paused, adding with a twisted smile that those few servants of the Earthshaker’s son who had survived were mine to do with as I wished. A wedding present from the future Wanax of Knossos to his Lady.

Minos returned to a tumultuous welcome from a crowd that festooned him with more garlands than his prisoners bore chains. His victory proved so intoxicating a draught that Knossos boys begged to join his guard. So it was that by the day of our nuptials Minos’s force had nearly doubled. It seemed only logical that several other priestesses take their lead from me and marry favoured members of Minos’s entourage.

            Our nuptial day drifts in and out of my memory. I recall a fog of incense and sunlight, swelling with cheers and music laced with the finest wines and spiced meats Knossos could boast. Blizzards of flower petals swirled about my face, and dancers spun in the courtyards until the ground beneath my feet lurched, only to steady when I clutched the hemlock bottle in my belt pouch. Or maybe that was just the wine.

            As the day progressed, I endured Minos’s wide smirk and his companions’ buffoonery; the knowledge of how quickly the contents of my bottle would extinguish it fortified my patience considerably.  I headed the wedding celebrations with the graciousness expected of the High Priestess of Knossos, only faltering when the crowd roared Minos’s name as he joined me on the temple balcony.

The shouts propelled me back two moons, when I had stood on this same balcony, my nostrils stung with the stench of burning. I blinked, half expecting Jadiire’s head to greet my eyes when they opened. It did not, and amid the chants of “Minos! Minos!” my distraction went unnoticed. I stretched my lips into something like a smile, whilst gripping the hemlock bottle so hard my fingers ached. It did nothing to soothe my unease.

The moment to use my hemlock came at the start of the wedding feast. Minos stood to address the assembled great and good, as ever the magnet for all eyes. None had attention to spare for his wine cup, which lay a mere hand's breadth from my own. I drew my bottle from its pouch.

“So let us make peace with all the wrongs of the past and together bring glory to the name of Knossos.” Minos paused, grinning once more as he waited for the cheers to die down.

I glanced around, ghosts swirling through my mind. Andiru, a man whose death sparked a riot. The man whose head had cost that of a priestess within less than a day. A man who never inspired even half the applause that Minos now basked in.

What price will those who murdered Sister Jadiire to avenge a fool like Andiru exact for the death of Minos?

I turned to my husband to be, then to his adoring crowd. My insides hollowed, filled with roiling ice as my last hope withered, then died behind my frozen smile. Noticed by none, I dropped the hemlock bottle, then ground it to dust under my sandal. I signalled for wine  - there was still the wedding night to endure.

            It wasn’t so bad in the end. Body and mind are easily dulled by strong drink and by the time I was bedded down with my new husband I had consumed enough to be quite numb to his attentions.

No. True fear only sprang the next morning. As was customary, I proceeded to the Lady’s Chapel at the heart of the Sanctuary, the torches of my attendants doing their best to dispel the pre-dawn gloom. My relief at Minos’s absence evaporated when my Ladies opened the door of our destination.

            Mercenaries packed the Chapel, some lounged on the benches lining the walls, others shadowed the door, but most knelt at the feet of the Priestess’s throne. Here lolled my husband, occasionally extending a hand for a flunky to kiss, or to bestow a golden trinket on some favourite.

            “What blasphemy is this? This chapel is the sanctuary of the Great Lady of Knossos. Her ceremonies commence here at dawn, yet . . .”

            “And yet the Wanax, Lord and husband of her High Priestess, now uses it to reward those who fought for her glory, Sweeting.” Minos wore his wolf’s smile again. I forced my glare to harden rather than falter, stilling a shudder by sheer force of will.

            “The centre of her worship is for the Lady’s devotionals, not . . .”

            “Darling Medjasse, there are offering tables and braziers throughout this great temple, not least in your own chambers. Surely, they are well enough appointed to honour the Lady whilst the Wanax enacts her divine will here. This is the place where the business of the Lady has always been done. Nothing has changed.” Minos clicked his fingers.

Spear butts cracked against floor tiles, everywhere men stood to attention.

“Do you not think so, Lady Wife?”

The soldiers stepped forward, their swords half drawn. Behind me, a priestess barely stifled her scream.

“Well?”  Minos’s smile faded into an expression that slicked my palms with sweat. His men closed to within striking distance.

I bowed my head. Lady, forgive me, but I did. My surrender left Minos in command of the chapel whilst his men escorted our procession back to my chamber. An honour guard, Minos called it, but the slamming chamber door as the dawn ceremony began haunts my nightmares still.​