Snakehead Read Free Page B

big for the island’s harbor. Flat-bottomed lighters came out to collect passengers, animals and freight.
    The girl drew her shawl over her face as she descendedinto the crowded boat—although she did not think she could be recognized.
    The waterfront was very small, quiet and strange to her eyes. Naxos had been familiar compared with this. She asked Danae, the lady with the golden hair, “Where will the refugees go?” She was angry with herself because she’d given all her treasure to the shipping magnate, which had surely been unnecessary; and now she had nothing more to give. She did not know how to haggle; she was so ignorant of real life.
    “The sisters will look after them, for now,” the lady said. “I’ll get someone to take them to the Enclosure.” She saw that Andromeda didn’t understand. “The Great Mother’s Enclosure is our temple,” she explained, in a friendly tone. “Our only temple—we don’t worship the Achaean Divinities in Seatown.”
    “They will be granted sanctuary,” said Andromeda carefully, in Minoan.
    The lady smiled. “You speak our language, Kore?”
    “Yes. A little.”
    The waterfront was lined with shady tamarisks and planes. Under the sweeping plumes of one great tamarisk a boy took the laden mules and led them off. Andromeda followed lady Danae and her tall son through a wicket gate. At the back of a terrace set with tables and chairs, more tables stood in a well-proportioned room decoratedwith faded murals. There was a counter down one side and a stone hearth in the center, where a red fire glowed on this summer’s day. Meat was roasting on spits turned by an urchin who leapt up crying, “Papa Dicty, Papa Dicty! Here they are!”
    A small, spare man with a seamed face like a walnut came out of the recesses beyond the hearth, wiping his hands on a white linen apron. He had a fringe of gray hair around his bald head, but he did not move like an old man. He embraced the lady. “My daughter.”
    Perseus did not kneel, which shocked Andromeda a little—because in spite of the apron Papa Dicty was obviously the master. But Perseus bowed very low; and then he too was embraced. She heard a murmur pass among the three of them: the lady and her son, and the older man. “All well enough? All well enough …” It sounded strange in this quiet haven, like the password of an armed camp.
    “And who is this young lady?” asked Papa Dicty, looking at her with great attention, and speaking Greek. She knelt, pushing the shawl back, and faced him unflinching—though she felt as if he knew
exactly
who she was, and what she’d done.
    “This is Kore,” said the lady. “We met in Naxos. She’s traveling to see the world, but she would like to earn her keep. We need someone else for the dining room, since Nika left. I’m hoping she’ll stay with us for the season.”
    “Good,” said the master. “Very good. On your feet, mydear. Come back into the kitchen, all of you, and we’ll do the interview there. I’m at work that can’t be left.”
    The kitchen was another
old
room, though the thatch and the beamed roof were new. Hams and bundles of herbs dangled; sunlight poured in from a yard where chickens scratched and another huge tamarisk stood. There were stove tops and ovens. The scrubbed counters were laden with fresh greens, pumpkins, cheeses, roots, vivid-colored fruits.
    In the midst of the room stood a marble-topped table. Papa Dicty returned to this and plunged his hands into a pillow of soft white dough, which he flung about as he spoke, in the most remarkable way. A girl with hair tied in a linen cloth, who wore a yellow, one-shouldered tunic with great smudges of flour all over it, was pushing lumps of the same dough into a metal device.
    “We’re making wheat ribbons,” said the master. “One of our specialties, and my own invention. Only our hard grain, for which Serifos is famous, will do. The flour must be milled extra fine, then we add eggs and oil. The