MINOS
Daniel Blair Dundee
Copyright (c) 2011 by Daniel Blair Dundee
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Introduction
There is a land called Crete in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair land and a rich, begirt with water, and therein are many men innumerable, and ninety cities....And among these cities is the mighty city Knossos, wherein Minos when he was nine years old began to rule, he who held converse with great Zeus....
Homer-9th century BCE
The history of the Western World began with the predominant acceptance of Classical Greece as the beginning of real civilization. No one, other than ancient poets or dreamers from the lunatic fringe, would have seriously considered that a brilliant civilization of scribes, metalworkers, craftsmen, poets, artisans, and philosophers lived in a world of palaces and industry, grace and artistic inventiveness, more than a millennia before Homer and Plato and the "first" Olympiad of 776 BCE. All that changed with the turn of the century discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans.
Most of the civilization we now know as Minoan, the refined inhabitants of Crete and other islands of the Aegean Sea, still lies beneath the ground awaiting the day when it will be unearthed. At one place it is even paradoxical to think that the very fallout from the eruption that destroyed their civilization also provided their architectural wonders the blanket of protection required to preserve them from the elements, the avarice of looters, and the ravages of time. A century of archaeological excavation and research has recreated much of the former lifestyle that in Homer's time, only a few hundred years after the decline of the Minoan world, was scarcely a dim recollection of shadows and legend, an age when gods walked among men.
This book is written observing the premise that underlying all legend is truth.
Few civilizations have been so completely concealed as that of Minoan Crete. The great city, Knossos, had its beginnings as early as 6000 BC and, although it was abandoned on occasion, it is the oldest Neolithic settlement in Europe. At its pinnacle of greatness, with a population estimated variously at up to one hundred thousand, it was the largest city in Europe and, quite possibly, the world. Thanks to the splendid achievements of dedicated archaeologists we can now pace the perimeter of the capacious court of King Minos's palace, admire the oldest European throne still in existence, promenade the unveiled streets of the volcanic island of Thera, an island destroyed in the most violent eruption in human history, and see pottery of unparalleled splendor. We can imagine ourselves trying to stifle our puerile impulses to climb inside the man-sized storage jars as the legendary son of Minos did, who drowned and was then resurrected by a physician, a tale leaving us the caduceus of modern medicine. We might mature again as we ponder the aesthetic frescoes whose ardent themes make real a world that for thousands of years has lain unknown and abandoned. No thought was given to the defense of these elegant houses of government and theocracy. They were not surrounded with the protective bastions and fortifications of London Tower, but rather with the dignity and pomp of Versailles.
Many of the literary, cultural, and technical accomplishments of the Minoans spread throughout the Mediterranean in the same way knowledge spreads today. Words and ideas from one civilization were passed on in like manner that they were taken from others. The word 'Olympia', as an example, predates the Greek world from which it is normally associated by a thousand years, as do the other place names of Olympus, Kalliste, and Knossos. Everyday words inherited by the Greeks such as 'sandal', 'hyacinth', and 'cypress', were also derived from the Minoan. Farming, smithing, breeding, building; skills adopted and adapted substantively from every realm, the Minoans built their society to heights of intellectual achievement unsurpassed by any previous.
When the Minoan civilization tragically collapsed most of their accumulated knowledge was lost, but portions did endure into the Classical Greek age and we, the successors of Greek conventions and philosophies, are still influenced today from those distant roots of time. In the study of the Minoan past we are only studying our own present and what the future might hold for us, both virtuous and corrupt.
An examination of the beginnings of any civilization begs more vestigial inquiries relating to ourselves. How do intricate and exceptionally ordered nations emerge from inconsequential cultures? Is the catalyst merely an infinite permutation of being in the right place at the right time? What, if anything as in our case, stops the process? How do these past civilizations collapse into a cultural slump after centuries of success and are we doomed to follow in their well established path? Will the undeniable pressures of overpopulation, environmental and ecological dilemmas, the increasing scarcity and waste of natural resources, the stresses of an all-encompassing world abundant with societal change, the increasing wealth and moral decay of the rich and the oppression of the poor, combine against the people of our age as they have done in every recognized civilization of the past?
Will we be the first to escape this inevitable fate? Will a greater power be our salvation? Or will that greater power suck us into the depths of another Dark Age, an Armageddon followed by a loose order of illiteracy and ignorance?
And the greater the summit from which we plunge, how much greater are our perils of never recovering?
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Forward
500,000 B.C.E.
The rock had been captured during the formation of the Sun six billion years earlier, a remnant from a star and planetary system which had annihilated itself in the process of a supernova millions of years previous to that. Its circuit in the collection of gasses, dust, and debris never brought it close enough to be incorporated into any body large enough to capture it. And so it was relegated to the confines of the Oort Cloud, the virtually invisible collection of fragments left over from the dawning of our Solar System.
The Oort Cloud, existing far beyond the distant orbits of the outer planets at the farthest frontiers of the Sun's gravitational field, is invisible from Earth due to distance and lack of starlight. Even the Sun appears as any other typically bright star in the heavens at that range, scarcely providing any more light. The uncountable bodies of this cloud, with a combined mass greater than all of the planets together and ranging in size from molecular to that of an office desk are forever trapped, confined to their slow journey around a visibly insignificant star.
Approaching the Sun from an even greater distance was a free roaming wanderer, the size of a small Moon, which also had its origin in the destruction of a planetary system. This body had defied all attempts at capture by stars, only briefly as cosmic time is defined, having its course altered enough to be considered a temporary comet, in one side of a stellar system and out the other.
As this wanderer passed through the Oort Cloud it exerted a gravitational effect of its own on the bodies nearby, swirling them by unseen tidal forces, scattering them wildly in all directions.
The small icy rock which had been in its humble and insignificant orbit in the Oort Cloud was now compelled into a trajectory which would take it on a two million year elliptical voyage through the Solar System, never coming close to a planet, but crossing the path of Earth's orbit around the Sun hundreds of times.
Months after this minor celestial event an observer on Earth might have seen a new light in the night sky. A light that differed from the others in a number of ways. This one grew in brightness as the nights progressed and its position in the sky relative to the others was changing.
Its shape was different; it had a fuzzy, elongated appearance. The Solar wind, increasingly strong as the distance closed, was heating the frozen methane and ammonia forming the gaseous coma and tail so distinctive to comets. The luminous head and vapor trail were about as near to nothing as they could be and still be something, containing less than a gram of material to the cubic mile.
As weeks passed the object grew in brightness and size eventually rivaling the Full Moon. Passing the orbit of Earth it could be easily seen in daylight. Continuing on its journey the leading edge began to warm further, the growing coma expanding to the size of a planet, gas torn from the glowing head forming the transparent streamer extending to the enormous length of tens of millions of miles and becoming intensely luminous as sunlight reflected off it.
Had any being of even the most remedial intelligence been in existence to witness this spectacle it would have terrorized them. As things were at that time it barely rated a passing glance.
And so the wanderer passed the Earth, plunging to an ignominious dissolution in the Sun, too early to be appreciated, leaving a legacy of life and terror behind for the future masters of the planet, leaving the small chunk of space debris on its fated journey to becoming a hallowed object, both for good and evil, in the history of mankind.
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CRETE
Chapter 1
Deus
2958 BCE
Culture on the island of Kriti during the third millennium before Christ was as primitive as any of the time, the inhabitants shepherds, gatherers of any available and edible growing thing, limited skills as hunters and farmers, and peaceable for the most part.
Deus had been a shepherd for the last eight years of his life, since he had been six years old. He had amazed his father at that early age by showing a responsibility that would have shamed any other lad.
Deus had been one of those quiet children, never crying as a baby, a delight to his mother who had previously exhausted herself attending to the demands of her four other children. He had loudly demanded her breast only once when in sickness she had been so weary from her duties of the day that she had not awakened until hours past his due feeding time. Not that she had any concept of that sort of time-keeping. When she had realized that the baby had hungered for hours yet had not complained as any normal child would she held him close and cried, thanking the gods for this blessing, vowing never to see this special one need again.
His innate curiosity had become the object of conversation among members of his family and all who visited. When he wasn't being held in his mother's arms, or riding comfortably on her back, he would be busily enjoying the antics of an insect, or the caprice of birds circling and diving. Once his mother watched him, enthralled by the bees flying in and out of the blossoms of a fire-flower bush, sitting on the green grass of the spring pasture ever so still, intensely absorbed, never the slightest danger of a bee considering him a threat. She had thought of moving him away to a safer distance but after awhile grinned with amusement as it dawned on her that she was watching him with the same unwavering interest as he was lavishing on the bees.
Forever after he would be her "Little Bee".
*
The attractive woman watched in comfort from the doorway of the small hut, her young boy clamping her leg, as her husband returned from the countryside with their three other sons.
The flock of sheep in tow, the pregnant ewes were bleating in protest at the walk. Tomorrow they would take pasture to the flatter land eastward where the grass was longer. The ewes would be delivering soon and they would need easy refection while they were expressing milk. Zeus had learned from his father that the more food available to sheep just prior to birth the healthier the lambs seemed to be, and the more milk produced by the mothers. Milk to the point of excess, milk for his family, milk for curd, and for cheese. Zeus loved cheese, the soft, white, pungent food that his wife made from the curds of the ewe's milk.
Sometimes he could trade his sheep's milk with a neighbor for some goat's milk. He loved the goat cheese his wife would make even more. He had to get some goats, agrimi, with the tough bodies and massive curling horns. But he knew that there was more gain in sheep. And no one but the poorest man would sacrifice a goat. The best trades could only be made for a clean white lamb at the Time of Offering, or a fat yearling during other seasons of the year.
Goats were a nuisance too. A goat he had owned six years ago when Deus was born got into the house and ate a wooden prize that his own father had given him as a youth, a small carving of the fertility goddess which would guarantee him an abundance of strong sons. The omen of the destruction of the idol was so incisive that he slaughtered the creature on the spot, violently dismembering the beast in a rage and swinging it's entrails around the inside of the then one room stone hut. His wife hadn't minded the smell, she was used to the stench of a new-gutted animal, but this killing was in the dead heat of summer, and the blood and slime had attracted every fly on the island of Kriti to torment her in her home. It had soaked into the dirt floor and the mud grouting the cracks between the rocks in the wall. There was no way to get rid of it all; it would have to go through the process of thorough decomposition. In the meantime the family would have to sleep outside. Her man and boys had no trouble with that, they were gone often with the sheep and had become quite accustomed to sleeping under the sky. But it was unusual for her and she felt exposed, especially with her new baby.
She liked the comfort of the walls around her as she slept. Even during the day she rarely strayed far. Something about the hut called to her, a warmth, a friendliness that had become part of her. Her home was her only possession, if a woman could ever have a possession. Her husband built it but his heart wasn't in it and so she seemed to have acquired it by default.
For all he cared it could be filled with badgers. He only stopped by as a central working point, a place to get a meal cooked better than he could manage in the field, a place for the release of his passions. It could hardly be called lovemaking as he had little love for his wife. She was a means to an end, the production of sons, arranged by their respective parents.
Shortly after the birth of Deus Selene asked her husband if he might find the time to build an extra room onto the house. The disaster involving the goat and the idol had slipped his mind, and it would be long before he thought that he would never indeed have another child. He resisted building at first, claiming that his duties in the field took up all of his time. Selene knew better than to press the issue. She had used more subtle methods in the past to get her way and would again. The room eventually came.
Time arrived for the annual sacrifice to the God of Nature and Zeus selected one of the finer lambs of his flock.
He had traded half of the others for what he considered a good profit at the village market and was in good spirits. One of his many trades was for a skin of fine wine, not the best he could have obtained, but it would have the desired effect. He would even share it this year with his family to show the God of Nature that he was above the animals, who typically fought for their own survival only and displayed greed rivaling the most base man.
Selene's part in the ritual was to prepare the lamb. She had used water with sand to scrub it clean, working hardest on the long tail, which was already caked with hardened feces, even at its early age. The lamb hunched its shoulders in pleasure, squirming as parasites that had plagued it since shortly after birth were cleansed from its skin and its itches were relieved. Afterward she rinsed it in clean water, rubbing with her hands to remove any grit. The lamb gleamed white and was still as she presented it to her husband.
She stood in the circle with her sons as her husband took the leading role in performing the sacrifice, giving thanks repeatedly for the abundance of food, the favorable weather, the lush surroundings, and the privilege of having four healthy sons when others he knew had only daughters. He called for compassion to be on those unfortunate men and asked that they be shown the errors of their ways so that they also might be blessed with sons.
Having displayed his benevolence he also asked for the blessing of good health to be with his family, especially his wife, who he hoped would be able to give him more children of the right and proper gender.
Now that the form of the sacrifice had been dispensed with it was time for the function, the killing of the lamb.
Zeus wasn't fanatical about religious rites, but he practiced them and taught them to his family as his father had taught him, just to be on the safe side. One couldn't be too careful. The land was fairly peaceful but he had heard of occasions where unexpected raids had occurred and of the resulting casualties. He'd heard of people in the village found dead in the morning, claimed in the night by spirits, and others who suffered slowly before death.
He truly considered himself blessed. His flocks had always been healthy, not suffering the plagues that often afflicted the shepherds in the more populated areas closer to the village. He wanted things to stay the same, and sacrifice was his way of establishing that very stability that he sought.
He held his obsidian knife high in the air, gripping the well-worn olivewood handle tightly in his right hand while holding the bleating lamb by the scruff in his left at waist height. In one swift stroke he brought the double-edged knife up and across its throat at the same time as he pushed the animal away from him, almost decapitating it.
Blood squirted out of the carotid arteries, straight up and then landing on the hand and arm of its executioner. He dropped the knife on the grass, reaching down with his free hand and grasping a still kicking hind leg as the air gurgled out of the severed trachea and flipped the lamb over. He held it at the height he had held the knife, allowing the blood to drain out in front of him over the dangling head. When he was sure it was dead he lay the animal on the flat rock he had been standing on and, picking up the knife, detached the head completely.
With another surgical stroke he eviscerated the abdomen from pubic bone to sternum. There he had to make sawing cuts to separate the ribs on the right side from the breastbone. He rolled the carcass onto its front giving it a shake as he lifted the body by the wool on its back. The viscera spilled out as a reeking stench filled the air. He severed the few ligaments attaching the organs and made a final cut through the colon as they came completely free. With his bloodied hands he centered the wet entrails into a neat mound on the rock, the head resting on top.
Beside the glistening mass he began skinning the hide from the lamb, incising the inner aspect of each leg and circumscribing above the hoofs before stripping the pelt.
He thought momentarily of the many uses his wife could make of it when he was finished but caught himself quickly as he remembered the words of his father telling him that one must be completely focused on worship at the sacrifice. As much as he tried he could not get as absorbed as his father. This worried him immensely as he thought of the ill fortunes that could befall him.
He furrowed his brow and stared into the widening pocket he was now creating at the torso of the lamb with the light scraping cuts of the razor-sharp obsidian. As he peeled back the skin slowly and with purpose he spoke thanks once again to the God of Nature for the great plenty in his family's life. He gave one final tug as the skin came free from the bones of the long tail. He rolled it up and lay it on the rock. His oldest son would stretch it on the rack at the ceremony close. On a day like this It would be dry before evening.
He held the moist carcass in his outstretched hands and stood, turning slowly as he exhibited the offering. His family smiled and nodded in approval.
They had many sheep, more than most of the families in the area. But they, like the others, rarely used the beasts for food. Only during sacrifices, where the animals were killed anyway, did they resort to that.
So it had been for thousands of years among the wiser peoples. Certainly men had discovered the delicious taste of sheep and the warmth of the whole skins long before they found a use for wool alone, but when they began to fashion more comfortable garments to protect themselves from the cold and found that they could repeatedly use the same animal to meet their needs, they learned that sheep were worth more alive than dead.
Older animals that were beyond use for breeding were traded in the village. The injured, the rare ones that may have broken a leg, the ones that had been mauled by predators, would be skinned and eaten. Mixed emotion followed these occasions, the regrets of losing a valued animal alloyed with the pleasure of eating meat that may not have been had for months.
The boys had gathered sticks for the fire. A smoldering flame was maintained in a small clay stove in the hut, the purpose not for cooking but rather to preserve the flame. Fire could be exasperatingly difficult to make by rubbing sticks, although the people were remarkably adept at it when they had to. It was so much easier just to keep a small fire going at all times.
Selene managed the fire, spending a portion of each day gathering bits of wood. The boys had been trained from the earliest age to bring sticks home to throw on the woodpile. This morning they had made a special effort for the occasion and had gathered all of the wood just prior to the ritual. Only freshly gathered could be used. A few thicker pieces had been added to the oven inside, mostly filling the small compartment, and quickly becoming hot coals.
Now it was time for the burning. The members of the circle went into the hut, breathing slowly so the smoke wouldn't bother their lungs. Selene had long since become immune to the acrid atmosphere, and her oldest now was hardly even aware of it. His younger brothers developed watery eyes but wouldn't think to complain.
Selene lay a hardened skin, scraped clean of wool, in front of the oven opening, the red glow from within warming her hands. She reached for the stick she kept beside the stove, blackened and burnt to a point with years of use, the other end worn smooth from much handling. She had stared for hours into the embers when at a loss for something to pass the time, rubbing and turning the stick all the while.
She deftly poked and pulled a combination of small and large embers onto the skin, leaving an adequate number inside the oven and quickly adding another piece of wood. She had a small pile of leaves drying inside and dropped a double handful on top to keep in the heat. Her oldest son took one side of the skin, Selene taking the other, and they gave it one fold, allowing the heavy center portion to drop earthward as they stood up. The oldest son leading the way they took the fire to Zeus who was quietly contemplating the viscera on the flat rock.
He had, while the others had been inside, placed sticks around the organs, pushing some under, some through, making a teepee of kindling. The fire was placed beside him on the windward side, the skin unfolded. He pushed the fire, using the leaves to protect his hands, against the side of his pyre, holding the skin up with his left hand for his wife to take.
He covered the embers and now fiercely smoking leaves with a large number of small sticks and bent down low beside them. He blew gently, then harder, increasing the strength of his expirations. Flame burst forth, engulfing the smoking leaves in an instant. The sticks also caught, the smaller ones reddening and twisting, crackling with the heat, a few exploding in a minor way, throwing hot sparks. He brushed one off his arm where it had singed his hair, the smell causing him to curl his nose at the reminder of an incident when he was just a boy.
He was piling the wood on now, it was bone dry and caught quickly, wrapping around the pile with the help of the west wind. They could smell the wool burning off the head of the lamb, then the first singeing of the innards. After that it didn't smell much different from meat cooking. Occasionally the intestines would heat up at an exposed point and swell, forcing excreta out the end, sometimes bursting through hardened cracks as the kinks refused to yield to the pressure. The stench would be brief as the gasses fed the flame.
He placed larger pieces around the pyre, pieces almost as big around as his leg. Then he heaped more wood on top. The fire would burn for hours now, totally consuming the scrap parts of the animal below. If it hadn't been a sacrifice he would have saved some of the organs. He was rather partial to the kidneys, and the heart and liver were nice. He hadn't understood exactly why these were seemingly wasted, he had never asked his father, but that was just the way things were done. He hadn't given it much thought and it wasn't even worth mentioning. He'd forgotten about it again almost in the same heartbeat.
The fire didn't take long to settle down into a high bed of coals, the offering within filling the air with a tantalizing aroma of cooking meat. The onlookers, and that's all they were, no one spoke, felt their stomachs churn in anticipation of the evening meal. They would fast until then.
Zeus now instructed his boys to place the forked branches on either side of the rock. They dug into the hard soil about a foot, placing the straight ends in and stabilizing them upright with heavy rocks and dirt. The forks were at about waist height.
Zeus pushed a sharpened branch, as long as he was tall, through the anus of the lamb and out its headless neck, centering it and suspending it on the forks. With a strip of soaked rawhide he tied the hind legs firmly back to the spit, then did the same to the front legs, tying them hard forward. Two more wrapped the flank and chest tight, binding the stretched body firmly to the spit. With the lamb now attached and balanced he could give it a bit of a turn every so often. By the time it was fully cooked the organs below would be incinerated and his family would be ravenous.
*
Selene knew that Zeus would never allow his son to have anything of decent quality. His clothes were the outgrown castoffs of his older brothers and she was forbidden to make anything new for him.
"Why should the youngest have the new? My oldest brother got what my father did no longer need and when it was not longer suitable for him then I took my turn at it. Can you say that my father was wrong?"
How could she answer such a question? To disagree meant a beating. Yet he was right to a point. The clothing was not exactly falling apart. Wool garments could remain wearable for decades, if one was not too proud of one's appearance, or smell. But the old ones were quite musky after a rain, and did not keep the wearer as warm. And she was developing a nagging worry that her son might get sick from the damp and cold.
*
Deus's father did not have much affection for his youngest son. He had begun to feel that the boy might be some kind of curse, but he wasn't sure. It was just a consideration that had picked away at him lately as he wondered why he was no longer being blessed with more children, even a girl. He had been doing so well with his sons, three strapping young men of great use to him, and Deus.
The boy was smaller than the others had been at the same age, less strong, yet he was already more trustworthy. Zeus had seen that he would always follow through with whatever he had promised and, although he was still too young to do a perfect job of anything difficult, for a boy of his age he obviously put his full effort into it.
Zeus had called him "the dependable one" when the others had chosen to elude their responsibilities one day. His mother hugged him, feeling proud that he had received for the first time the recognition he deserved.
The insult to his older brothers did not pass unnoticed, which was just as Zeus had intended. He had hoped that they would feel shamed that a younger boy would take on responsibilities and do a better job than they. To further salt their wounds he thought he might give Deus the chance to prove himself in the field. He didn't really think too much of his youngest, being thin and weak, but this was an opportunity to teach a lesson. He announced that Deus was to have his own small flock to manage. He could take twenty sheep of his choosing to pasture and have full control over them. The risk wasn't great as they would only be gone a few days this time and wouldn't be going far.
Deus was overwhelmed at the honor. Only his oldest brother had been given the privilege of flock management, and only when he was five years older. Deus was still only seven years old and although the other boys said nothing, their facial expressions spoke volumes.
Deus had observed closely his father at work around the hut, listening intently to anything he had to say about the animals. When time came to choose his sheep he was prepared beyond any expectations. Zeus had anticipated that his son would choose sheep at random, or the friendlier sheep that children often find themselves getting attached to, but Deus singled out the finest, choosing a combination of the healthiest ewes with long, tight wool of the lightest shade, one fine ram, and a half-dozen lambs that he felt had potential.
Zeus was amazed at his choice. How could a young boy single out the finest of his flock of over two hundred so quickly and with the expertise that a lad of twenty might find difficult?
"May I shepherd these Father?"
He was sorely tempted to disagree with the selection simply for disagreement's sake. The thought also occurred to him that sending a young boy out in the field with some of his finest was not the best idea. On the other hand, if he wanted the admonition of his sons to have full effect then perhaps the harsher the humiliation the better. With the same vacillation he resolved to allow his son to manage his selection.
Selene looked out at the hills with some trepidation. "I can have his bed roll prepared by the end of the next day, if he could wait that long."
Zeus had not caught the implication of the suggestion, still wondering at himself for the decision that he had made, and had merely agreed.
She had achieved what she had wanted for her boy for years, and knew that her husband could not go back on his word, although she would likely have to suffer some abuse. She knew that there would be jealousy from the other boys as well, but none of them had ever showed her the affection Deus had and he deserved something in return.
She would make him a blanket. Her husband would be leaving in the early morning with the majority of the flock and her two middle sons. Her oldest would be leaving at the same time, perhaps staying with them for a short while before breaking off to his own pasture.
She would only have to put up with her husband's advances for one more night. She had previously decided that she would convince him that she was unclean and would exile herself to sleeping outside, but with the change in circumstances today it might be wiser to accept his lust.
The sheep had been getting a bit ragged, loose clumps clinging to their sides entangled with the summer coat now replacing it. The flock would have to be plucked soon, probably on their next return. Today she pulled the loosest wool from their sides, gathering the clumps into her apron and pressing it firmly, compacting it. None of the others paid her much mind. The job had to be done sooner or later.
Her movements had to be steady; she was not as familiar to the sheep as the males of her family. Spooking them would send them on a run, maybe scattering them, and she did not want to have to deal with an angry husband at this time.
As her apron filled and could hold no more she took the load into the hut where the rest of her family would not notice it as readily. This she did several times, plucking the wool quickly with one nervous eye on the others to make sure they weren't looking, slipping into the hut with her loads only when their attentions were elsewhere. If she noticed that one was glancing her way she would slow to a dawdling pace, humming louder, giving the impression that she was only occupying time for boredom's sake. The heap inside grew, the job taking only an hour as she moved through the mass of the flock. With her last apron-load, her twelfth, she felt she had enough.
Her family was fast asleep now in the warm sun, the cool ocean breeze keeping them from overheating. She sorted through the mass inside, picking out the numerous pieces of grass and thistle entangled in the wool. She worked as quickly as she could, hoping to get her project finished before they woke.
She lay an ancient blanket on the floor, her oldest. Swatting the pile of wool repeatedly she scattered it over the square, then picked the smaller fluffs from the perimeter, tossing them to the center. The rougher spots had to be smoothed out, the layer becoming level as she flicked her hands back and forth, knocking the tops of the piles around, poking them into crevasses, skillfully creating an equally dense covering.
When she judged it to be just right she went over the developing blanket again, moving her fingers randomly, twisting the fluffs, mingling them with their neighbors, incorporating each one slightly into the other.
She had a skin of water inside, enough to dampen the white carpet but little else, sprinkling it evenly from the sides. She felt her bowels rumble a bit as she went through the motions of this clandestine activity. At the same time her anticipation of her son's happiness with his surprise was causing her head to feel light.
She made the short walk to the open pit that was their well several times, stirring the water in her rush and making the last skin-full dark with silt. It was enough to finish the job and some dirt wouldn't make any difference. The wool and the old felt beneath were now well soaked.
She brought in the cooking pole, the spit for roasting animals, straight and just long enough. Starting with the edge closest to the door she began the roll, moving back and forth as she evenly wheeled the poll along, ensuring that the wool was being compacted evenly. She stopped at one point half-way along, jamming a rock under the backside of the enlarging bundle to keep it from unrolling, and poured a little more water onto an area she thought still too dry.
When she was finished she lay out a large bare sheepskin devoid of wool, several skins laced together, and rolled the bundle onto it, wrapping the whole bundle tightly and working it back into the center of the small hut. She then tied it in eight places with rawhide thongs, pulling hard on the knots, squishing the water to the areas less compacted.
Selene was no stranger to arduous tasks but this was exhausting. She sat on the floor a moment and contemplated what to do next. She had to beat the roll with a large stick. Usually this was a family affair, everyone pounding as long as they could for hours at a time before the felt was ready. A large adult sized felt could take days.
How was she going to do this in time for her son to go out on his first pasture without making noise enough to alert her husband? She couldn't lie and say it was for him. It was far too small. Now what was she to do? She couldn't really start working it until they left in the morning. Even then she doubted if it could be done in time for her son to leave in the evening.
Something of a panic attack hit her. Her arms started to feel as if they were humming inside. Her thoughts became scattered and she had to move her bowels.
The only thing to do was to hide the bundle under a pile of bedding. The afternoon sun wouldn't keep the others asleep much longer and with that thought she began to work the heavy roll over to the back wall of the hut.
A floor shadow caught her eye, a dark silhouette framed by the bright sun pouring in through the door opening. She was unable to move, unable to even acknowledge for a moment that it was there or what it was.
She had been caught. The shadow was moving forward toward her. She braced herself for a blow as the sound of the leg movements picked up their pace.
She felt an impact on her leg.
She had prepared for a bolt of pain but it didn't come. She looked down toward the squeezing sensation and noticed a couple of small arms reaching around to the front, clasped together in a bear hug.
"What are you doing Mother?"
She squatted on the floor, taking in a deep breath of relief. "I'm making you a present my Little Bee. You won't have to feel cold on your nights with the sheep." She spoke in hushed tones. "You must not say anything to the others yet. They do not know about it. Do you promise?"
"Yes Mother." They each gazed into the eyes of the other. Deus wasn't so sure about going off on his own. He had a spirit of adventure in him that said it was time, but he would have been quite comfortable home with his mother. She was everything to him.
Yet a longing to do something else other than play around the hut had been enticing him to leave. Not for a long time, maybe just a few days, then he would be back. He had explored the area immediately around to death. He knew if a rock had been moved, if the anthill had grown. He wanted to know what else was out there.
He wanted to see the fierce beasts of the imagination that his father had told him about, teased him about. He wouldn't get too close. He wasn't entirely sure if there even were such things. They had never come near the hut.
And why would his oldest brother make those sly faces, showing the whites of his eyes when he thought he wasn't being watched? Deus had fabulous sight and peripheral vision and didn't miss much of what the others around him were doing. He had discovered that if he could observe without being seen to observe it was more likely that the other person would continue to do whatever it was that they were doing. If he looked straight at them they would often stop, or change their facial expressions, sometimes to a more friendlier look to please him, sometimes, in the case of his brothers, to an irritated look that told him he wasn't to bother them. He didn't know why this was so but he preferred to know what people were really thinking. He couldn't rely on honesty when looking straight at them and so chose the other course at times. He was well aware that the others didn't know that he did this.
The others didn't know much.
His mother knew about keeping the area around the home in order, and how to prepare good food, but when he asked her questions about his father and shepherding she only replied that she had no need to know of those things, they weren't for her, she was too busy tending to other things.
That made no sense, although he wouldn't criticize anyone for their opinions.
He asked his father about the stars, the Moon, why it was so hot and then so cold, the red of the sunrise, a hundred other things. Zeus didn't know. He made up stories on the spot or told Deus not to ask so many questions.
His brothers were fools. He tried to understand them and failed. They ran around roughhousing all day until they were exhausted and then went to sleep. They had absolutely no interest in anything except their own enjoyment. Learning was a foreign concept. Deus had tried to show them how the ant's nest had grown and they kicked it apart while he cried. In a rage he grabbed the youngest of his three brothers and tried to pull him away. The others pulled them apart and gleefully tossed Deus into the broken mass of rich soil and seething ants. They bit his legs as he wailed, more with indignation than pain, jumping away from the pile only to be pushed down onto it again and again. His brothers howled with laughter, taunting him and calling him the "Nature Boy".
As they tormented him he could see the approach of his father, walking up the hill toward them, with no greater alacrity than if he was going for an afternoon stroll. Appearing unthreatening the others kept up their mischief, the oldest giving him one final push into the mass but not knocking him down this time.
He sprung out as the bodies of his brothers, a yelp from each issuing forth, crashed down onto the pile.
"You should not have let this happen." Zeus's voice was calm as he addressed the oldest.
As Heltos thrashed about in the ant's nest, kicking up a small cloud of dust in his surprise, Zeus turned quietly and left.
Deus's face was smeared with mud from the dust and tears. He looked sadly at the flattened nest, ants still fanning out in every direction to defend their territory. He had lost, his halfhearted savior doing little to console him. Without a glance at his brothers he followed his father, knowing now that they hated him and not understanding why.
Heltos finished dancing about, flicking and smacking the last of the clinging ants from his body. "I'll get that little field rat, that nature boy." He spat, thinking that he would also kill his father, resolving to do it one day.
*
Deus's mother held him tighter. They were sitting on the wet roll which was now well covered. She clapped him on the shoulder, rising and walking outside. Deus followed her out, noticing that his three brothers were now awake and sitting in a circle a little way off.
Heltos looked at him, scowling, muttering to his siblings. Deus was amazed, and hurt. He couldn't hear that far yet knew what his brother was saying. He could read the older boy's lips. He was calling Deus a "Mother's baby." Why did he hate him so much?
He followed after his mother, keeping the distance between them a little greater than before, not consciously caring what his brothers thought.
No one spoke that night. Dinner was prepared and eaten in silence. There was nothing unusual about this, it was more common than not. They looked down at the food resting on the hard skin as they sat in a circle around it, taking handfuls and filling their mouths. Deus finished first, having the lightest appetite, and was off to view a brightly patterned butterfly perched on a scrub brush in the distance. Zeus didn't notice his departure. He was deep in thought about tomorrow. He would leave early he decided. It would take all day and part of the next to drive the sheep to the rich grasslands he had in mind. And he was having second thoughts about Deus taking the small flock.
Why had he made such a rash decision? How could he have foreseen that Deus would take his finest? He was considering for the hundredth time recanting the agreement. He would have if he hadn't thought that the others would think him fallible for doing so. If only he could think of some face-saving way to do it.
His full stomach was making him tired. Slipping his backside down off the log and onto the dry grass he stretched himself out full length, his head resting on what was now his pillow, his stertorous breaths amplifying as the sun sank red below the horizon.
*
Selene woke at daybreak, the faint glow of early dawn softly lighting the sky, chasing darkness back to the netherworld. The hut door faced east allowing the first trickles of light in through the opening, striking the place where she laid her bed, waking her before any others that slept inside.
Her husband had not come into her that night. She thought she caught the faint aroma of wine before dinner the night before but she didn't get close enough to be sure. He was steady on his feet so he couldn't have had much. He must have had a skin hidden somewhere over the hill. He had gone for a walk earlier. No matter. It had kept him sleeping through the night.
She looked around the room. Only Deus was present, breathing gently on top of the pile concealing his present. She could get busy on that soon.
Inhaling the warm air she rose, the susurration of her clothes and bedding waking her son. She wagged her head with a smile as she caught his eyes opening. He would lie in his bed but never seemed happy to sleep unless she was also in bed. It made her wonder how he would make out on his new task of shepherding.
She stepped outside and saw Heltos in the distance minding the flocks. His back was facing the homestead and she could see his buttocks wiggling as he ground against the back of a ewe. At least it looked like a ewe from this distance. What a disgusting creature she had given life to. She wondered, if he had known, whether he would even care that she was watching. In a moment he was done, and lay down amidst the sheep, quite out of sight. It was only a mild curiosity to him, as he dozed off, that the sheep had left him with another small sore, a tiny abrasion really. He wondered if it might develop into another chancre. They didn't hurt, but they were itchy enough to be annoying. He could not see the spirochete Treponema pallidum boring microscopically into the flesh beneath the thin skin of his penis. He curled comfortably with his hands in his armpits, feeling a swelling lymph node that was waging an unseen internal battle against an invisible organism, syphilis.
The others were stirring from their bedding. The boys were becoming most comfortable out of doors, only coming in, lately, when the nights were cold.
Her husband was still propped against his log, pulling his thick beard and jutting out his yellow teeth as he smacked his lips and stuck his tongue out of a wide mouth. He scratched through his matted black hair with both hands, pulling them down his face, rubbing vigorously as he grunted and strained. By the time he was finished his morning noises he had fully wakened the two boys.
Deus joined them as they broke fast in silence, hoping that his father would not recant his promise. Zeus had obviously been reflecting once again on his offer. "You will choose the flock once more. If they differ from the first then you are still too young."
So there it was. The sheep had intermingled with the others and he would have no help in separating out the ones he had selected. As they walked up to the grazing area he felt some trepidation as he peered through the masses looking for them. He wanted desperately to prove himself. He knew that his father knew each intimately and would also recall exactly. Self-doubt was rising within him. His brothers had smirked at the challenge, well aware that it was too arduous.
Deus roamed the shifting body, easily guiding the ram, the lambs, and the first dozen ewes to an area separate from the others. But the difficult part was pending as the finest sheep departed, leaving the better of the mediocre. Many were almost identical. One by one he made his hesitant decision, trying partly to remember his past selection, trying partly to choose once again the finer animal, hoping it would turn out to be the same.
He took several minutes to find the last, knowing that the nineteen previous must have been right or his father would have checked the procedure.
At last he made his pick, moving slowly with it, only easing it along as he kept watch with his side vision, prepared to nonchalantly let go of his beast in favor of another should his father's facial expression betray that he had chosen wrong. That look never came and Deus was forced to walk the ewe to the smaller group without indication.
Zeus came up to him, his reluctant face cracking into a slim smile.
"Well done, boy."
Deus was overjoyed, his insides churning with happiness carefully concealed so as not to raise the wrath of the brothers who had been rooting for his failure.
Zeus charged his boy with attending to the every need of his flock, protecting it from predators, both man and beast, tending the sick and injured, guiding it to the finer pasture, and returning home in three days with the flock in better condition than that in which it left.
With that, the four left, Deus scrambling around trying to block his company from following, clapping his hands to divert the more determined ram.
Rounding the crest of the hill Zeus looked back on the home scene, Selene nowhere in view, his youngest moving the herd closer to the home in what he had to admit was a good formation. The ram only stopped following the boy once, to lap from the urine stream of a ewe in estrus.
As he stood there for a moment taking in the scene he wondered at himself. First he rashly allows a lad of six to take charge of his finest sheep, and then, when the boy chooses a wrong ewe on the last of his second selection, says nothing.
*
Selene, secure now that the others had departed, without so much as a word to her, began to uncover her roll. The wet smell of fleece filled the room, instantly raising the humidity, creating a muggy sensation on her skin as she struggled to move it across the floor. She rolled it back and forth, each time changing the angle to get it closer to the door. When the pole was protruding outside she was stuck. The bundle was too heavy to drag sideways and the pole was too long to lift up and tip out the door.
Deus, with his flock, moved into the area surrounding the hut. His mother was looking slightly embarrassed as she stood in the door, helpless with the sodden mass that was to become his blanket.
"If you help, perhaps we can get this outside."
They both knew that the sheep weren't going anywhere now. Deus had established himself as their leader and they would not stray far.
The two pulled and pushed respectively, turning, rolling, changing the angle, both wishing they were stronger, giving up sweaty with exhaustion with the bundle half way out the door. Deus sat down in the dirt, his arms heavy, a stitch developing in his side.
"We should make the sheep pull this out."
Selene laughed. "My little one. Now my big one. Old enough to have his own flock but still too young to help his old mother move a bundle of wool out the door. Come on. We will do it."
She felt silly again. She could have easily done the job of pounding inside the hut but merely wanted to move it outside for the fresh air and so she could see and enjoy her surroundings. But now that it was half way out there was no point trying to bring it back in.
Putting their backs into it they gave everything they had, rolling it back and forth violently now, bouncing it off the door frame, twisting it about as it finally came free from the confines of the four walls.
They both collapsed against the outside wall, complaining that they had never strained themselves so hard. Selene had to get going on her project if Deus was to leave later in the day. She doubted if even that would give her enough time. In fact she knew it was impossible. Even with another woman helping the roll couldn't be beaten into felt before sundown.
Maybe Deus could stay nearby until tomorrow. Her husband would surely never find out. But what if he did? Maybe she could find her boy tomorrow at pasture; carry his blanket to him. He would be cold but he could survive one night without too much hardship.
She sat at the bundle, facing the morning with her dark, sunburned skin. With her arms still weighty from their previous efforts she began to drum on the roll with two fat sticks. Deus picked up two others, smaller ones, and did the same. He kept his eye on the sheep, prepared to leave his mother should one make any move at straying. For now they were behaving. Not even the ram was getting any ideas but the vegetation around the hut was sparse and he wondered when they would be wanting to go off on a forage.
They sat in silence, soft thudding the only sound aside from an occasional bleating. Deus's arms were so sore he thought they might fall off. There had to be a better way. He lay the sticks down, not able to continue. His mother carried on with her rhythmic drumming, smiling at his efforts and knowing them to be too onerous for a youngster.