came, the great one that destroyed the palace. I survived by jumping from a second story veranda onto the Western Court. Oh, I broke my ankle in the fall, but that was small compared to what befell the girls who stayed behind. Some burnt to death when the oil lamps tipped over and caught. Others were crushed, like Pasiphaë in her pretty apartments.
“I stayed on at Knossos because it never occurred to me to escape. Where else would I have gone? I helped clear the rubble and prepare food for the priests and workers, and when my time came I gave birth in the sanctuary of Eleuthia. It was a hard birth. I was weak, and Meri was so small and frail I thought she might die. There was so little to eat by the time she was born, I had to give her to other women to nurse. In those days, we ate anything and everything edible, from snails and boiled leather to things it’s just better not to mention.”
Ariadne saw Iphame swallow hard. What came next didn’t surprise her because her childhood nurse had frightened her with such tales. “Minos Rasuros began ordering us to eat the corpses of the dead. By then, we’d already been doing it. We had no choice, truly we didn’t, but we took precautions to avoid offending the gods or the shades of the dead, and we made certain no one consumed their own kin.”
Tears spilled from her eyes; she brusquely wiped them aside. “The Minos came with his men. He forced his way into houses and took only the children. Tribute, he said, to make up for the measures of wheat, wine, and olive oil the people couldn’t pay.
“I don’t know how many there were. I never saw them. I only know they were taken down into the passages near the Pillar Crypt and butchered. Many say their bones are still there. Mothers still tell that story here to terrify their unruly children. They say wicked old Minos will come eat them, but sometimes the truth is more horrifying than any story. To this day, I shudder to remember. When we saw the blood on the horns of consecration, we knew it didn’t come from any bull. We thought we heard the children’s screams at night. We thought we saw their shades staring out at us from the shadows, asking why, why had we done this?
“That was the end. The families of the children Rasuros took decided they’d had enough. They gathered followers who feared their children would be next, who were terrified the Goddess would curse the land still further and twist their unborn babies in the womb. The Minos was supposed to respect the gods and protect his people. Instead, he profaned the god’s worship.
“So the people stormed through the town and set fire to the Little Palace where the Minos went to live after the quake. What they did there was just as evil as anything he did to them. They butchered everyone, young and old, except for the daughter who betrayed his hiding place. They beat him with rods and hauled him up to the palace. They dragged in the corpses of his youngest children and dismembered them before his eyes. I saw them down in the Western Court. They started to roast the meat on the god’s altar while he howled in anguish. I couldn’t watch after that. I was so frightened they would come for Meri that I took her from the nursery and fled with her down, down into the great empty storerooms under the workshops and climbed into one of the pithoi . I don’t know how long I stayed there, listening for them, waiting for the god’s anger to bring down the roof and kill us all. Meri’s crying brought a temple servant who told me it was safe to come out.”
Though she strove to contain it, Ariadne felt her nausea returning. Everyone knew how this grisly tale ended.
Iphame noticed her pallor. “There’s a jar in the next room, girl.”
“No, finish the story, Great-grandmother.”
“The woman told me how Minos Rasuros died. The people dragged out the High Priest of Poseidon, but when he refused to make the sacrifice, when he cried sacrilege, they seized the labrys
“I stayed on at Knossos because it never occurred to me to escape. Where else would I have gone? I helped clear the rubble and prepare food for the priests and workers, and when my time came I gave birth in the sanctuary of Eleuthia. It was a hard birth. I was weak, and Meri was so small and frail I thought she might die. There was so little to eat by the time she was born, I had to give her to other women to nurse. In those days, we ate anything and everything edible, from snails and boiled leather to things it’s just better not to mention.”
Ariadne saw Iphame swallow hard. What came next didn’t surprise her because her childhood nurse had frightened her with such tales. “Minos Rasuros began ordering us to eat the corpses of the dead. By then, we’d already been doing it. We had no choice, truly we didn’t, but we took precautions to avoid offending the gods or the shades of the dead, and we made certain no one consumed their own kin.”
Tears spilled from her eyes; she brusquely wiped them aside. “The Minos came with his men. He forced his way into houses and took only the children. Tribute, he said, to make up for the measures of wheat, wine, and olive oil the people couldn’t pay.
“I don’t know how many there were. I never saw them. I only know they were taken down into the passages near the Pillar Crypt and butchered. Many say their bones are still there. Mothers still tell that story here to terrify their unruly children. They say wicked old Minos will come eat them, but sometimes the truth is more horrifying than any story. To this day, I shudder to remember. When we saw the blood on the horns of consecration, we knew it didn’t come from any bull. We thought we heard the children’s screams at night. We thought we saw their shades staring out at us from the shadows, asking why, why had we done this?
“That was the end. The families of the children Rasuros took decided they’d had enough. They gathered followers who feared their children would be next, who were terrified the Goddess would curse the land still further and twist their unborn babies in the womb. The Minos was supposed to respect the gods and protect his people. Instead, he profaned the god’s worship.
“So the people stormed through the town and set fire to the Little Palace where the Minos went to live after the quake. What they did there was just as evil as anything he did to them. They butchered everyone, young and old, except for the daughter who betrayed his hiding place. They beat him with rods and hauled him up to the palace. They dragged in the corpses of his youngest children and dismembered them before his eyes. I saw them down in the Western Court. They started to roast the meat on the god’s altar while he howled in anguish. I couldn’t watch after that. I was so frightened they would come for Meri that I took her from the nursery and fled with her down, down into the great empty storerooms under the workshops and climbed into one of the pithoi . I don’t know how long I stayed there, listening for them, waiting for the god’s anger to bring down the roof and kill us all. Meri’s crying brought a temple servant who told me it was safe to come out.”
Though she strove to contain it, Ariadne felt her nausea returning. Everyone knew how this grisly tale ended.
Iphame noticed her pallor. “There’s a jar in the next room, girl.”
“No, finish the story, Great-grandmother.”
“The woman told me how Minos Rasuros died. The people dragged out the High Priest of Poseidon, but when he refused to make the sacrifice, when he cried sacrilege, they seized the labrys
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