in the firelight, as distant and unknowable as the men who had first devised them. The Greek letters he recognized—he could even make out some of the simpler words—but a large portion of the page seemed given over to characters he had never seen in his life. He reached forward, brushing Marina’s shoulder, and pointed. “What are they?”
“Linear B.”
He remembered she had mentioned it earlier, in her house, before the thugs showed up. “What’s that?”
“An alphabet. An ancient system of writing. It was discovered about fifty years ago at Knossos.”
“So it’s Greek?”
She shook her head. “Long before Greek. It comes . . .” She thought for a moment, playing with a strand of hair. “You’ve heard of Theseus and the Minotaur?”
“The myth?”
She laughed. “Where Pemberton worked—where I worked—is the place where history and myth meet each other like a river and a sea.” She dug her fingers into the earth and pried out a small rock. “This stone is nothing. But if I do this . . .” She laid it on the ring of stones that made the fireplace. “Suddenly it has meaning. Somebody will find this in the future, maybe two thousand years from now, and even if they have never seen a fireplace or even imagined one, they will know that a human being made this thing for a reason. And they will try to guess what that reason was. Maybe they will find traces of ash in the middle of the circle and scorch marks on the stones; perhaps a rusted tin can and your cigarette butts. And they will deduce . . .”
“That we ate our supper here?”
“That this was the site of a primitive pillar cult, no doubt with phallic implications. That the stone circle was the foundation of a wooden column which we, in our primitive ignorance, worshipped. That we brought food offerings in metal containers and smoked this mildly psychotomimetic substance to induce a state of divine ecstasy. They will think that the ashes and the scorch marks come from a fire, possibly linked to invasion or war, when the sacred pillar was burned down. They will publish this in their learned journals and then they will argue as to whether the similar sites they find all across the island constituted an official religion, or simply parallel local traditions. And they will be completely wrong.”
She picked up the rock and tossed it away into the darkness. Grant waited, watching the firelight dance over her face. “What’s that got to do with the Minotaur?”
“Only to say that the myths survive when everything else has been forgotten. And that sometimes the myths, for all their slippery deceptions, tell us more about the past thanruined walls and broken pots. For three thousand years no one believed that there had ever been a great prehistoric civilization on Crete—but in all that time they never forgot the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. Even children knew it. Then, fifty years ago, Evans came here and went to the place the legends said. He found everything. A palace like a labyrinth. Drinking vessels shaped like bulls, figurines of bulls, stone horns—even paintings of young men performing acrobatics on bulls.”
“Not a human skeleton with a pair of bulls’ horns sticking out of the skull and a ball of string next to it?”
“No.” She pulled her knees close to her chest. “Of course, myth distorts the past. But here on Crete you had the very first civilization in Europe—more than a thousand years before the golden age of Greece and fifteen hundred years before the Caesars—and for three millennia afterward the only place it was recorded was in the myths. Without them the palace at Knossos would just be piles of stones. And when Evans finally brought it to light, he named its civilization ‘Minoans’ after the legendary King Minos.”
Her face shone in the golden firelight as if—like some ancient sibyl—she could see back through thirty centuries of history. She didn’t even seem to notice Grant’s frank
“Linear B.”
He remembered she had mentioned it earlier, in her house, before the thugs showed up. “What’s that?”
“An alphabet. An ancient system of writing. It was discovered about fifty years ago at Knossos.”
“So it’s Greek?”
She shook her head. “Long before Greek. It comes . . .” She thought for a moment, playing with a strand of hair. “You’ve heard of Theseus and the Minotaur?”
“The myth?”
She laughed. “Where Pemberton worked—where I worked—is the place where history and myth meet each other like a river and a sea.” She dug her fingers into the earth and pried out a small rock. “This stone is nothing. But if I do this . . .” She laid it on the ring of stones that made the fireplace. “Suddenly it has meaning. Somebody will find this in the future, maybe two thousand years from now, and even if they have never seen a fireplace or even imagined one, they will know that a human being made this thing for a reason. And they will try to guess what that reason was. Maybe they will find traces of ash in the middle of the circle and scorch marks on the stones; perhaps a rusted tin can and your cigarette butts. And they will deduce . . .”
“That we ate our supper here?”
“That this was the site of a primitive pillar cult, no doubt with phallic implications. That the stone circle was the foundation of a wooden column which we, in our primitive ignorance, worshipped. That we brought food offerings in metal containers and smoked this mildly psychotomimetic substance to induce a state of divine ecstasy. They will think that the ashes and the scorch marks come from a fire, possibly linked to invasion or war, when the sacred pillar was burned down. They will publish this in their learned journals and then they will argue as to whether the similar sites they find all across the island constituted an official religion, or simply parallel local traditions. And they will be completely wrong.”
She picked up the rock and tossed it away into the darkness. Grant waited, watching the firelight dance over her face. “What’s that got to do with the Minotaur?”
“Only to say that the myths survive when everything else has been forgotten. And that sometimes the myths, for all their slippery deceptions, tell us more about the past thanruined walls and broken pots. For three thousand years no one believed that there had ever been a great prehistoric civilization on Crete—but in all that time they never forgot the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. Even children knew it. Then, fifty years ago, Evans came here and went to the place the legends said. He found everything. A palace like a labyrinth. Drinking vessels shaped like bulls, figurines of bulls, stone horns—even paintings of young men performing acrobatics on bulls.”
“Not a human skeleton with a pair of bulls’ horns sticking out of the skull and a ball of string next to it?”
“No.” She pulled her knees close to her chest. “Of course, myth distorts the past. But here on Crete you had the very first civilization in Europe—more than a thousand years before the golden age of Greece and fifteen hundred years before the Caesars—and for three millennia afterward the only place it was recorded was in the myths. Without them the palace at Knossos would just be piles of stones. And when Evans finally brought it to light, he named its civilization ‘Minoans’ after the legendary King Minos.”
Her face shone in the golden firelight as if—like some ancient sibyl—she could see back through thirty centuries of history. She didn’t even seem to notice Grant’s frank
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