They obeyed and departed, chattering and giggling like any lot of twelve—and thirteen-year-olds. They were no more than that, new recruits learning the art. The bull, however, was a veteran. You didn’t exercise together humans and beasts when neither knew what to expect.
And that, Reid thought, is the secret of the Minoan corrida. Nobody in my era, that I read about anyway, could figure out how it was possible. The answer looks obvious, now. You breed your cattle, not for slowness as Mary Renault suggested, but for intelligence; and you train them from calfhood.
Nonetheless it’s dangerous. A misstep, a flareup. They don’t accept every kid who wants fame and prizes and influence. No; bloodshed’s a bad omen. (Except the blood of the best animal, when he’s sacrificed after the games.) That must be the reason—beneath every religious rationalization—why the maidens aren’t allowed to dance when they’re having a period and why they have to stay maidens. Morning sickness would raise hell with an agility and coordination that would earn them black belts in any judo school at home, wouldn’t it? And there, in turn, we must have the reason why they train here, the youths on Crete. Put together a mixed lot of young, good-looking, physically perfect human beings—
Erissa nodded. “Well,” she, smiled, “did you enjoy watching?”
“It was, was unique in my life,” he stammered.
She halted before him. So far she had only flung her cloak across an arm. The ringmaster’s orders did not touch her, who, with long experience, had been the instructress. “I don’t want to go back to the isle right away,” she said. “The men can take the girls. You and I can borrow a shah lop later.” She drew the crow’s-wing queue off her bosom where it had gotten tossed. “After all, the Ariadne told me to show you about.”
“You are too kind.”
“No,, you are interesting.” He could not draw his eyes from her. Erissa, seventeen years old, colt-slim, unscarred by time or grief, loosening her hair.... Her smile faded. A slow flush descended from cheeks to breasts. She flung the wool cloak over her shoulders and pulled it around her. “Why do you stare?”
“I’m sorry,” Reid mumbled. “You’re, uh, the first real bull dancer I’ve met.”
“Oh.” She relaxed. “I’m nothing remarkable. Wait till we go to Knossos in spring and you see the festivaclass="underline" ’ She pinned her mantle at the throat “Shall we walk?”
He fell into step beside her. “Do you, live here throughout every winter?” he asked, knowing the answer from her older self but feeling a need of staving off silence.
“Yes, to help train novices, and beasts, and myself after a summer’s ease. That’s spent in Knossos, mostly, or in a country villa we have. Sometimes we go elsewhere, though. My father’s a wealthy man, he owns several ships, and he’ll give us, his children, passage when a voyage is to a pleasant place.”
“M-m, how did he feel when you wanted to become a dancer?”
“I had to wheedle him a little. Mother made the real fuss. Not that parents can stop you from trying out. But I didn’t want to hurt them. I hadn’t gotten a real call, like the one that came to Ariadne Lydra. It just seemed exciting, glamorous—am I shocking you? Please don’t think I’m not happy to serve Our Lady and Asterion. But I wouldn’t want to become a priestess. I want lots of children. And, you know, a dancer meets practically every eligible bachelor in the Thalassocracy. With the honor she’ll bring to his house, she can pretty well choose any of them. Maybe this spring will be my last festival to dance in—” Her trilling stopped. She caught his hand. “Why, Duncan,, your mouth is all twisted up. You look ready to weep. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said harshly. “I remembered an old hurt.”
She continued hand in hand with him. No man on Atlantis would dare take advantage of her, he thought. The paddock was lost to view as their trail wound downward over the hills. Grass and brush stirred, trees soughed in the wind. He could smell her flesh, still warm from exertion, warm as the sunlight on his back or the fingers that curled around his.
“Tell me of yourself,” she urged presently. “You must be very important for the Ariadne to keep you.”
Lydra had commanded strict silence about his prediction of catastrophe. He had to admit that, for the time being, it made sense; public hysteria would help nothing. She’d wanted to suppress the entire story of his magical arrival in Egypt, but he pointed out that that was impossible. The word had spread through Athens and Diores’ sailors must have passed it around Atlantean taverns and bawdyhouses before returning home.
“I don’t know that I myself count for much,” Reid said to the girl. “But I’ve come a far and a weird way and am hoping the high priestess can counsel me.”
He gave her simply his public narrative, no hint about time travel but much about America. She listened wide-eyed. As he talked, he tried to recall Pamela’s face. But he couldn’t, really, for Erissa’s—young Erissa’s.
Lydra said: “You will remain here until I release you.”
“I tell you, the Minos must be warned,” Reid protested. “Will my word carry less weight with him than yours?” she retorted coldly. “I am still not satisfied you speak truth, exile.”
No, he thought, I don’t imagine any rational person is ever ready to believe in the end of his world.
They stood on the temple roof in a chilly dusk. The lagoon glimmered faintly metallic; land and city were swallowed by murk, in this age before outdoor lighting. But fire was in the sky, a sullen red flicker reflected off the smoke that rolled out of the volcano. Now and then sparks showered from its throat and there went an underground rumbling.
He gestured. “Does that not bear witness for me?’
“It has spoken before,” she answered. “Sometimes it spews forth stones and cinders and melted rock, and the voice of Asterion roars. But a procession to the heights, prayers, sacrifices cast in, have always quieted him. Would he destroy the sanctuary of his Mother, his Bride, and his Mourner?”
Reid threw her a glance. Beneath a cowl, her profile showed vague against darkling heaven; but he made out that she was staring at the mountain more intently than her calm tone suggested. “You can smooth the people’s unease,” he said, “till the last day. What about your own, though?”
“I am praying for guidance.”
“What harm in sending me to Knossos?”
“What good, thus far? Hear me, outlander. I reign over holy things, not over men. But this does not mean I’m ignorant of temporal affairs. I could hardly be that and serve Our Lady’s interests. So I understand, perhaps better than you if you are honest about your origin. I understand how grave a matter it would be to follow your advice.
“Cities emptied, left deserted ... for weeks? Think of moving that many people, feeding and sheltering them, keeping them from blind panic at the awful thing threatened, losing them by hundreds or thousands when sickness breaks out in their camps, as it surely will. And meanwhile the navy is far at sea, widely scattered for fear ships will be dashed together, therefore helpless. But boats would speedily carry news to the mainland. The risk that the Achaeans would revolt again, make alliance and fall on our coasts, is not small. And then, if your prophecy proved false—what anger throughout the realm, what mockery of temple and throne and the very gods—what rebellion, even, shaking the already cracked foundations of the state! No, that which you urge is not lightly to be undertaken.”
Reid grimaced. She spoke with reason. ‘That’s why plans have to be laid soon,” he begged. “What can I do to prove myself to you?”
“Have you a suggestion?”
“Well—” The idea had come to him already in Athens. He and Oleg had discussed it at length. “Yes. If you, my lady, can persuade the temporal governor—wh-wh-which you surely can—”
The mountain growled again.
Sarpedon, master of Atlantis’ one small shipyard, ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “I’m doubtful,” he said. “We’re not set up here like at Knossos or Tiryns, you know. We mainly do repair and maintenance work. Don’t actually build anything larger than a boat.” He stared down at the papyrus Reid had spread on a table. A finger traced the drawing. “Still—but no Too much material needed.”