The Dancer from Atlantis (15 page)

Reid studied her as carefully as he dared. Lydra was in her later thirties, he’d been told: tall, stiffly erect, slender on
the verge of gauntness. Her face, likewise lean, bore blue-gray eyes, arching nose, severely held mouth, strong chin. The
brown hair had started to fade, the breasts to sag, though she kept part of the bull-dancer physique from her youth. She wore
the full farthingale, the high brimless hat, the golden snake bracelets seen upon images of Rhea. A blue cloak was thrown
over her shoulders. Reid felt like a barbarian in his Achaean tunic and beard.

Or was his unease because he distrusted her? He’d found a chance to tell Erissa: ‘A story persisted to my day that… an Ariadne
… helped Theseus slay the Minotaur. What could be the truth behind it?’

Erissa had shrugged. ‘I heard – will hear – rumors that he and she were in conspiracy. But the only clear fact is that after
the disaster she joined him in conducting sacrifice, and later she departed in his ship. Well, what choice had she? He needed
her to cast some thin legitimacy over his conquest of Knossos, and had the strength to compel her. She never reached Athens.
He left her and her attendants on the island of Naxos. There, despairing, they gave up the pure faith and turned to a mystery
cult. If anything, does such treatment not show that no bargain existed, that she was – is, will be – innocent?’

‘But, well, I hear Theseus has been on Atlantis more than once, and messages often travel back and forth.’

Erissa had uttered a sad small laugh. ‘Why should he not cultivate the spiritual head of the Thalassocracy? She did have a
Kalydonian grandfather. But fear not her ever serving in earnest a worldly cause. Her maidenhead was scarcely fledged when
she had a revelation in the cave of Mount Iouktas. Since, she’s always called herself a bride of Asterion. After her bull-dancing
days, she took the vows of a priestess – among them celibacy, remember – and served so devotedly that she was elected to regnancy
over the Temple at the lowest age on record. I well recall her austerities, her strict enforcement of every observance, her
lectures to us lay sisters about our vanities, levities, and laxities.’ Seriously: ‘What you must do is convince her you are
an agent of good, not evil; and that may not be easy, Duncan, darling.’

Right, he now thought, gazing into the implacable countenance.

‘These are grave matters, touching on secrets that the gods withhold from mortals,’ Lydra said. ‘And I do not mean things
like your fire-spouter, or the iron and the horse riding that Diores spoke of. Those are simple human works. The moon-disk
you bear on your arm, however—’

He had demonstrated his wristwatch yesterday and noticed how awed the attendant votaresses were. Though folk used sun and
stars to mark off units as small as hours, these blades which busily scissored away each successive instant were too reminding
of Dictynna the Gatherer.

He saw an opportunity. ‘Besides a timepiece, my lady, it’s an amulet which confers certain prophetic powers. I’d planned on
giving it to the Minos, but maybe the proper repository is here, ’He took it off and laid it in her hand, which closed almost
convulsively around it. ‘The oracle did not come to us outlanders by chance. I can foresee terrible dangers. My mission is
to warn your people. I dared not tell the Athenians.’

Lydra set the watch down and touched the Labrys talisman to her lips. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked tonelessly.

Here we go. Reid thought, and wondered if he was about to destroy the world he had come from, like summer sunlight scorching
a morning mist off the earth; or if he was only fluttering his wings in the cage of time.

Neither, I hope, I pray my agnostic prayer, he thought amidst the knockings of his heart. I hope to gain the influence I must
have in order to do … whatever is needful … to find those travelers from the future when they come, and thus win home to my
wife and children. In exchange, can I not salvage a little of Erissa’s world for her? Or at least get her back to the one
she salvaged for herself?

It is my duty. I suppose it is also my desire.

‘My lady,’ he said solemnly, out of a dry mouth, ‘I have been shown visions of horror, visions of doom. I have been shown
Pillar Mountain bursting asunder in such fury that Atlantis sinks beneath the sea, tidal waves overwhelm the fleet and earthquakes
the cities of Crete, and the royal island falls prey to men who set chaos free to roam.’

He might have gone on to what he remembered from books not yet written: A sleazy reconstruction under the new rulers, who
must surely be Achaeans and who had no wish to keep the peace either at sea or on land. The Homeric era to follow; would splendid
lines of poetry really repay lifetimes of disintegration, war, piracy, banditry, rape, slaughter, burning, poverty, and glutted
slave markets? Finally, that invasion from the north which Theseus himself was troubled about: wild Dorians bearing iron weapons,
bringing the Bronze Age down in ruin so total that scarcely a legend would remain of the dark centuries which came after.

Lydra, who had sat still a while, spoke. ‘When is this to happen?’

‘Early next year, my lady. If preparations can be made—’

‘Wait. A fumbling attempt at rescue could be the very cause
of disaster. The gods have been known to work deviously when they would destroy.’

‘My lady, I speak only of evacuating the Atlanteans to Crete and everyone there inland from the coastal towns … safeguarding
the fleet—’

The pale eyes held most steady upon him. ‘You could have been misled,’ she told him slowly, ‘whether by a hostile Being or
an evil-seeking witch or a mere fever. You could even be lying for some purpose of your own.’

‘You must have had a full report on me from Diores, my lady.’

‘Not full enough obviously.’ Lydra raised a hand. ‘Hold. I make no accusation against you. Indeed, what I have heard, what
I see in your expression, makes me think you’re likely honest – as far as you go – but you do not go very far, do you, strange
one? No, something this drastic requires askings out, purifications, prayers, visits to oracles, takings of counsel, the deepest
search and pondering that mortals can make. I will not be hastened. According to your own word, we have months before us wherein
to seek the wisest course of action.’

Decisive as any man he had known, she finished: ‘You will stay on this isle, where sacredness holds bane at bay and where
you can readily be summoned for further talks. There are ample guest quarters in the wing reserved for visiting male votaries.’

‘But my lady,’ he protested, ‘my friends in Athens—’

‘Let them bide where they are, at least until we’ve learned more. Be not afraid for them. Winter months or no, I’ll find occasions
to send messengers there, who’ll observe and report.’

The Ariadne imitated a smile. ‘You are not a prisoner, man from afar,’ she continued. ‘You may walk freely about the main
island too, when not needed here. I do want you always under guidance…. Let me think…. A dancer should suffice, a lay sister,
young and merry to brighten your moods.’

Reid thought it odd how calmly she took his news. Had Diores ferreted out sufficient hints to give her forewarning, or was
she inhumanly self-controlled? Her voice snapped the thread of his wondering:

‘I have in mind particularly a sister of excellent family whose name may be an omen. For it’s the same as that of your woman
companion I was told about. Erissa.’

The bull lowered his head, pawed, and charged. As he came down the paddock he gathered speed, until earth shook and drummed
with the red-and-white mass of him.

Poised, the girl waited. She was clad like a boy for this, in nothing more than belt, kilt, and soft boots. Dark hair fell
down her back in a ponytail lest a stray lock blind her. Reid’s nails dug into his palms.

Sunlight out of a wan sky flashed off tridents borne by the men on guard. In an emergency, they were supposed to rescue the
dancers. They stood at ease just outside the rail fence. Reid couldn’t. Through the cool breeze, the hay and marjoram odors
of Atlantis’ high meadows, he sensed his own sweat trickling, stinking, catching in his mustache and making his lips taste
salty when he wet them.

That was Erissa waiting for those horns.

But she won’t be hurt, he told himself frantically. Not yet.

At his back the hills rolled downward, yellow grass, green bush, here and there a copse of gnarly trees, to a remote glimmer
off the sea. Before him was the training field, and beyond that a slope more abrupt, and at its foot the city, the bay, the
sacred isle, and that other isle which, rising black from scintillant blueness, was the volcano. Above the crater stood a
column of smoke so thick that the wind hardly bent its first thousand feet. Higher up it was scattered and blown south toward
unseen Knossos.

The bull was almost upon the girl. Behind her a half-dozen companions wove a quick-footed pattern of dance.

Erissa sprang. Either hand seized a horn. The muscles played beneath her skin. Incredibly to Reid, she lifted herself, waved
legs aloft, before she let go – and somersaulted down the great backbone, reached ground in an exuberant flip, and pranced
her way back into the group. Another slender form was already on the horns.

‘She’s good, that ’un.’ A guard nodded at Erissa, winked at Reid. ‘But she’ll take no priestess vows, I’ll bet. The man who
beds her ’ull have as much as he can handle— Hoy!’ He leaped
onto a rail, ready to jump the fence with his fellows. The bull had bellowed and tossed his head, flinging a girl aside.

Erissa ran to the beast, tugged an ear, and pirouetted off. He swerved toward her. She repeated her vault over him. The dance
resumed, the guards relaxed.

‘Thought for a bit there he was turning mean,’ said the man who had earlier spoken. ‘But he just got excited. Happens.’

Reid let out a breath. His knees were about to give way. ‘Do … you lose… many people?’ he whispered.

‘No, very seldom, and those who’re gored often recover. That’s here on Atlantis, I mean. The boys train on Crete, and I’m
told no few of them get hurt. Boys’re too reckless. They’re more interested in making a good show, winning glory for themselves,
than in honoring the gods. Girls, now, girls want the rite to go perfect for Her, so they pay close attention and follow the
rules.’

The bull, which had been rushing at each one who separated herself from the group, slowed to a walk, then stopped. His flanks
gleamed damp and his breath was loud. ‘That’ll do,’ the ringmaster decided, waved his trident and shouted, ‘Everybody out!’
To Reid he explained, ‘The nasty incidents are usually when the beast’s gotten tired. He doesn’t want to play any more, and
if you force him, he’s apt to lose his temper. Or he may simply forget what he’s supposed to do.’

The girls scampered over the fence. The bull snorted. ‘Leave him a while to cool off before you open the gate,’ the ringmaster
said. He cast a glance more appraising than appreciative over the bare young breasts and limbs, wet as the animal’s. ‘Enough
for today, youngsters. Put your cloaks on so you don’t catch cold and go to the boat.’

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 neared. ‘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 shallop 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 festival.’ 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?’