reveal the breasts. She smiled at Icarus’ taste and chose a more decorous gown which covered her breasts with a thin, diaphanous gauze. Sleeves of saffron fell to her elbows, and the skirt, supported by hoops, flared like an amethyst bell.
“He is going to be disappointed,” said Icarus, entering the room. “He wanted you to dress ‘as becomes a woman.’ ”
“Haven’t I?”
“You know very well what he meant. He wanted to see your breasts. Myrrha always said they were like melons, and if they kept on growing they would soon be pumpkins. I expect he feels like gardening.”
“He can see enough of them now.”
“I know, but you’ve diminished them. Perhaps you could paint your nipples with carmine.”
“Do you want me to look like a Moabite temple girl?” she protested, though nipples were also painted in worldly Knossos.
“It can’t hurt to pacify him,” said Icarus realistically.
She thought with a start:
“You see,” he went on, “if he likes your dress, he may not make you kiss him.”
“If he likes my dress, he will make me kiss him.”
Icarus looked surprised. “But that seems greedy. Must he get everything the first night?”
“Achaeans are greedy men. That’s why they’ve come to Crete.”
“Of course,” he admitted. “You are right then to veil your breasts.” From the contents of the chest he selected a pendant of amber and placed it protectively around her neck. “This,” he said, “will diminish them even more.”
She arranged her curls with the help of copper pins, their heads like tiny owls; reddened her cheeks with ochre; and darkened her eyes with kohl. She was not vain; she was fastidious. She did not dress to make herself beautiful, but to perform an indispensable ritual by which she emphasized the degree and discipline of her ancient civilization. The application of cosmetics was an affirmation of order in a world which, because of earthquakes and Achaeans, threatened to grow disorderly to the point of chaos.
Hardly had she finished her toilet when Xanthus invaded the room with a swollen platter of grapes, figs and pomegranates, withdrew, and returned with a copper flagon of wine and two cups, which he placed on a three- legged table of stone. Then, with the help of coals from a portable brazier, he lit the flaxen wicks of the clay lamps and went to fetch his master.
“ Xanthus,” said Ajax, entering the room with the leer of a man who is about to enjoy a woman and be envied by other men, “stand guard at the door with Zetes and don’t disturb us.” Withdrawing, Xanthus returned the leer, and Thea ceased to pity him for his severed ears.
“You will sleep in there,” Ajax said to Icarus. He handed the boy a cushion and indicated the floor of the bathroom, beside the tub. “Your sister and I are going to dine.”
“I’m not sleepy,” said Icarus. “The evening is still youthful. However, I am hungry.”
“Help yourself to the fruit, but eat it in the bathroom.”
Icarus eyed the fruit without enthusiasm and eyed his sister as if he hoped for a sign. It was plain to see that Ajax had kisses in mind. What should they do?
But Thea could not help him. Fear had left her speechless. A disagreeable adventure threatened to become a disaster. Ajax could break her back with the fingers of one hand.
“You know,” continued Icarus valiantly, “it’s not the food I want so much as the conversation. My great-great uncle Perdix used to say: ‘Good company is worth a broiled pheasant, a flagon of wine, and all the honey cakes you can get on a platter.’ ”
Thea recovered her speech. “Icarus would enjoy eating with us. You see, he hasn’t known any warriors except his father. You could show him how to handle a dagger.”
’Yes,” said Icarus, reaching toward the dagger in Ajax’s belt, a bronze blade with a crystal hilt. “It’s the biggest I every saw. Why, even a wild boar—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Ajax had swallowed him in his massive arms and swept him toward the door to the bathroom. There was something almost paternal about the scene. In the giant’s embrace, the chunky Cretan looked like a small boy being carried to bed by an irate, but loving father. Thea remembered that Ajax had mentioned a daughter.
When Ajax returned, the door shutting behind him on its vertical wooden pivot, Thea had formed a plan. At the age of eleven in Knossos, before she had gone with Icarus to Vathypetro, she had learned to parry the advances of amorous boys; on sun-dappled Crete, young bodies ripened like succulent dates and love came with first adolescence.
Smiling, she motioned Ajax to a chair. “He’s a lonely child,” she said, gesturing toward the closed door behind which she did not doubt that Icarus had knelt to listen. “He misses a man’s company. You see, our father was killed by pirates three years ago.”
“Achaean?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “They attacked the ship on which he was sailing to Zakros.” It was not hard to invent a touching story. “Women have raised us. Not our mother, who died when Icarus was born, but servants and aunts. Always women. How we have missed a man.” She offered him a cup of wine. He touched the brim to his lips, tasting gingerly, as if he suspected poison. She walked behind him and placed her hand on his forehead.
“You must let me bathe your wound,” she said. “Pretend that I am your own daughter. Before he was killed, I used to tend my father with soft unguents and comb his wind-tossed hair. Like you, he was a fighter and often hurt.”
He seized her wrist with unpaternal roughness and drew her into his lap. “The skirt becomes you,” he said, draining his cup in one continuous swallow. “But not the blouse.” With a single and surprisingly deft movement for such a ponderous hand, he tore the gauze from her breasts. His body reeked of leather and sweat. He could not have bathed in weeks, possibly months; he had doffed his armor but he wore the same tunic which he had worn in battle (in several battles, she decided; it was stained with blood, dirt, and food). Furthermore, he was densely wooded with hair: his legs, his arms, even the tops of his sandaled feet. He reminded her of a large hirsute goat, and like a goat he seemed to her foolish rather than threatening. She had not yet learned that a strong fool is the most dangerous of men.
“You need more wine,” she said, trying to disengage herself. Perhaps she could incapacitate him with drink. According to a universal proverb, variously claimed by Cretans, Egyptians, and Babylonians, drinking increases desire, but limits its performance.
“Not wine. This—” He buried her mouth with a kiss which tasted of onions. She remembered that Achaean soldiers chewed them as they marched. She felt as if heavy masculine boots were trampling the delicate offerings —murex, coquina, starfish—in a seaside shrine to the Great Mother. It was not that she feared dishonor, like the god-fearing women of Israel, the faraway kingdom of shephered patriarchs. As a Cretan girl, she was realistic enough to recognize that there was nothing dishonorable if he took her, a woman and a captive, against her will. It was his dirt she feared, his ugliness, his hairiness, his affront to her feminine pride (remember, the Cretans worship a goddess as their chief deity). It was the supreme disorder of being forced to do what seemed to her not a wicked but an ugly and demeaning thing.
His kiss grew more impassioned. She clenched her teeth to withstand his probing tongue. Loathing burned in her like a black, bitter fire of hemlock roots.
“I lost my snake,” said a loud and determined voice from the door. Ajax leaped to his feet, and Thea embraced the hard but welcome coolness of the floor. Rising to her knees, she watched the advance of the snake. He was neither large nor poisonous but, flickering his forked tongue, he somehow managed to look as sinister as an asp from the deserts of Egypt. Ajax seized a stool and assumed the martial stance of a soldier defending a bridge against an army.
But Icarus intervened before they could meet. “You mustn’t scare him,” he said, restoring the snake to his pouch. “It makes him nervous, and then he bites.”
“Guard!”
Xanthus appeared in the door beyond the light well. As usual, he looked expectant; perhaps he hoped for an orgy.
