Phoenicians

Travelers were a common sight at Kition, but the local folks who stopped to watch the flotilla enter the harbor that afternoon were mystified by the hodge-podge convoy. Most remarkably, the flagship was flying the Tyrian royal blue and red colors, a sight that sent the children running through town tugging at robes, telling the grown-ups the king had arrived. Hearing this, the townspeople shuttered their shops and gathered on the shore to watch the ships ease into the harbor. The sailors heaved the anchors overboard and Bitias sent landing orders down the line. For all its advantages, the stopover at Kition posed the serious risk of enticing the passengers to disband into the vibrant, livable city. Elishat needed to keep her flock together. Therefore, the captains required that all passengers gather the following morning in the Kition market square. The sailors, meanwhile, drew straws to see who would take the first watch to safeguard the ships. Everyone else went by turns in the rowboats to town.

With her mounds of flowering oleander plants, statuesque palms, and age-old olive trees, Kition looked like a sister of Tyre. Indeed, many Tyrians had settled there over the years, moving in next door to the Greeks and making way for the occasional Persian who wandered in from the east. Like Tyre, Kition was a dynamic port city with a welcome mat for merchant traders from all around the Great Sea. When the Tyrians came ashore, they were met by old friends and distant cousins. It was like a joyous family reunion except that, after the hugs and kisses, when the question, “What brings you to Kition?” was asked, smiles faded and conversations got complicated.

News of the constant upheaval between Pumayyaton and Elishat wasn’t really news around the Great Sea. People had been following the sibling rivalry for years. However, the people of Kition had heard nothing of the assassination of Acerbas. When they found out, they suddenly found themselves embroiled in controversy. Some thought Elishat had been rash in her decision to escape. Others applauded her courage to flee. Still others said it was fine that she had left Tyre but didn’t necessarily want her hanging around trying to become queen of Kition. Uncertainty spawned a swirl of questions: Was Pumayyaton really responsible for the death of Acerbas? Had Acerbas somehow offended the king? Was King Pumayyaton really as bad as everyone said? Shouldn’t the king, good or bad, be obeyed? And what was Elishat’s status? Her people called her queen, but over what land did she rule? And by whose authority?

Second on people’s minds was just how long the refugees planned to stay. Under normal circumstances, Tyrian ships would have brought goods to trade in exchange for room and board. These migrants apparently had nothing. Kition opened its doors, but even the most well-to-do among them couldn’t accommodate an extended stay. As a result, many conversations ended with a courteous but pointed question: What, exactly, is the plan? Having survived the first leg of their journey, Elishat’s people were asking themselves the same question.

Meanwhile, Amaal approached Hannu as he stepped out of a boat coming ashore. She could see that the night on the Arbiter under the eagle eye of Admiral Bitias had sapped him of his usual exuberance.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Hey,” he replied flatly.

“Where’s the mask?”

“Safe.”

“Safe where?”

“Trust me, it’s safe.”

“Hey, my fate is wrapped up in that thing, too. I want to know where it is.”

“Bitias let me leave it in the Queen’s cabin on the Arbiter.”

“What kind of mask is it, anyway?”

Hannu hesitated.

“Well?”

“It’s the face of Melqart.”

Amaal’s eyes widened. “You stole the face of Melqart?”

“Don’t you start in on me. It’s just a stupid bronze mask.”

Amaal slowly shook her head, “You stole the face of Melqart.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s go.”

They set out into the city. The aroma of home cooking wafted out into the streets, and Amaal suggested they, like everyone else who had come ashore, knock on a door and ask to be invited in for a meal, but Hannu refused. He could still feel himself standing on the deck of the Arbiter, the rope bound tightly around his wrists. He could see the water swirling below and hear a voice announcing, “This thief robbed the Temple of Melqart. The Queen has ordered his execution.” He remembered wanting to speak, but he had lost his tongue. Then, somehow, Amaal had appeared, but by that time, his head might as well have been stuffed with cotton. In his mind, he was already sinking into darkness, sucking cold water into his lungs, and thinking what a tragedy it was that no one would ever know why he had done it. Then, out of the blue, the ropes were gone, and everyone was moving away from him, a sensation almost as terrifying as the threat of death. His acquittal felt like an abandonment. People would never again look at him the same. The shame was squeezing his chest and making it hard to breathe. He didn’t want any more evidence of his poor judgement. He didn’t want to laugh too loudly or pick an orange from the wrong tree or beg for food from a stranger.

All the same, a shopkeeper along the way offered them a drink of cool spring water and a small sack of ripe figs. The sight they really needed to see, she told them, was the new temple to Ashtart. “You can’t miss it,” she said, directing them to the north side of the city. “It smells like a delicious cedar forest.” Her words were true. The woody aroma hit them, and then they came within sight of the temple.

“Look at that!” Hannu said softly. “It’s bigger than the Temple of Ashtart in Tyre! Maybe even bigger than the Temple of Melqart!”

Amaal mounted the steps and peered past the pillars that held up the cedar roof. Returning to Hannu, she reported, “No atrium…and no black star.”

Hannu replied with a guess-you-can’t-have-everything shrug, and the two entered the garden at the side of the building.

“What do you think these are used for?” Hannu asked approaching one of several stone wells. They peered inside.

“Oh!” Amaal said. “That’s not what I was expecting.”

The skull of a bull lay inside the shallow well. It had been picked clean to the bone. The teeth in its long, smooth jawbone curved upward into an unnatural smile. Hannu started to bend over the edge of the well to see if he could grasp one of its horns, but there was a commotion at the side door of the temple, and four servants appeared, hauling the bloody remains of a sacrificial ram. Amaal and Hannu ducked down and watched as the servants approached one of the wells and unceremoniously heaved the carcass into it. Without a word, the servants returned to the temple. Amaal and Hannu waited a minute and then went to investigate. The sight turned their stomachs. The charred heap was sticky with crimson blood. The eyes in its wooly head lay sunken and lifeless, its magnificent, curled horns the only evidence of the noble creature it had once been.

“I could never understand why the gods would want a bloody sacrifice rather than the gift of a living animal,” Hannu said. “If I were a god—”

“Hannu, you’ll get into trouble talking like that.”

A collar of pink crept up Hannu’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” Amaal said. “It’s just that people take these things seriously.”

Hannu rolled his eyes and turned away.

“Hannu…”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Fine.”

They returned to the front of the temple where a man sitting in the shade called them over. On his worktable were a set of carving tools and a bowl of water. He held up a clay medallion with a person’s silhouette etched into the front.

“Let me make your portraits.” He spoke through pointed, crocodile teeth.

Hannu took the medallion and examined it front and back. “What’s it for?” he said.

“You leave them on the steps. The maidens take them into the temple and set them out so the Goddess will see your faces and think you Phoenicians are in there praying even when you are out at sea.”

“Clever,” Hannu said. “But we don’t have even a half a shekel to pay you.”

“What do you have?”

“Figs,” he said, holding up the bag.

“That’ll do.”

Hannu put the bag on the table and rested his hand on top. The artist told them to sit on the bench in front of the table. He lifted a damp cloth and pinched a handful of clay off the moist lump hidden underneath. “Now, stay still,” he said. He formed two medallions and began engraving the images with his fine-edged tools, all the time whistling through his long, brown teeth. His breath, a stinking cloud, filled the air. When the medallions were done, Hannu took them and released the figs, but just as they stood to go, the man reached out and grabbed Amaal by the wrist.

“Come here, pretty girl,” he snarled. “Stay, and I’ll make you my wife.”

Amaal stared at him and growled, “Let…go…of…me.” She tried to pull away, but the man tightened his grasp.

In a flash, Hannu lifted the table and shoved it over on top of the man. The clay, tools, water bowl, and the sack of figs went flying. The man released Amaal and lunged for the gold ring hanging around Hannu’s neck, but Hannu pulled away just in time. They made for the temple, quickly deposited their medallions on the step, and took off in the direction from which they’d come, but not before Hannu turned and shouted to the lecherous carver splayed out in the shade. “Enjoy the figs!”

When they’d run a safe distance, Hannu slowed. “That guy smelled like rancid meat! I nearly threw up on his lump of clay! Are you okay?”

Amaal rubbed her wrist. “I’m fine.”

“That scum had the nerve to call us ‘Phoenicians!’”

“What are Phoenicians?”

“It’s a slight from the Greeks. It means “The Purple People””

“You’re joking! Because of the purple dye?”

“Exactly!”

Neither wanted to admit that the conversation reminded them of Uru. Changing the subject, Amaal pointed out, more forcefully this time, that if they were to knock on a door, someone would invite them in and give them a meal and a place to sleep. But Hannu’s sour mood had returned. He insisted they walk to the harbor and catch a ride out to the fleet. By the time they climbed aboard the Phoenix, the sun had set and the sky was full of stars. Hannu lay on his back, his arm slung across his eyes. Amaal took out her flute and bumbled through a song she had heard at the wedding. Every time she made a mistake, Hannu grumbled. Finally, he groaned, pulled his pipes from his sash, and, without opening his eyes, played the merry little tune flawlessly but without merriment. Amaal began again but Hannu interrupted, “So, Amaal, if you don’t know who your father is, and you weren’t with the caravan, where did you come from?”

Amaal ignored his callous tone. Everyone had the right to a bad mood now and then. She thought back to the day she arrived outside the gates of Tyre. It seemed a lifetime ago though it had really been only a matter of days. But the question, persistent, unanswerable, annoyed her. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—I don’t remember. Now, can we just drop it?”

But Hannu wouldn’t let go. “You were standing outside the city wall. Do you remember that?”

“Of course. I was watching the caravan cross the land bridge.”

“Well, it’s a simple question: Where were you just before that?”

“I don’t know. It’s like a big, blank space, invisible, like air.”

“You don’t remember your home or your family—or anything? So, what, you think you just kind of grew yourself up? Like a wild weed?”

Amaal refused to respond but thought the phrase described him perfectly.

“I’d never forget my family,” he said.

“Lucky you.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it. We fought to survive.”

Amaal noticed how he was turning a question about her

into a story about him. At least it relieved her of having to contemplate the past. She let him run with it.

“I haven’t told you the worst of it.”

“Worse than losing your father?”

“After my father left and I was born, Pumayyaton wanted to have me sacrificed at the temple—like that ram we saw today—a sacrifice to the gods as an excuse to punish my family.”

Amaal could hardly believe what she was hearing. “What? Sacrifice a baby? Who sacrifices babies?”

“Well, if there’s a famine or a drought or flood, and the gods are ignoring the people, then okay, but this was revenge.”

“’Then okay?’ What do you mean, ‘then okay?’ That’s murder!”

“That’s why Mom took me away from the city.”

“That’s horrible, Hannu! It’s…it’s sickening!”

“That’s family.”

Hannu yawned and turned away. Amaal stayed awake for a long time, trying to grasp why anyone would kill a child to appease the gods, even in the worst of times. A ram was one thing, and gory enough, but a baby was inconceivable. What gods would even welcome such a sacrifice? The cool night air settled across the deck and made her shudder. She wished for sleep, but sleep would not come. The more she learned about these people, the less she felt a part of them. She was not the only one wrestling with a troubled mind. All across the city, Kitions and their guests were talking late into the night. No old stories were told. No jovial songs were sung. Wine was sipped judiciously. Some hosts were gentle with the travelers while others scoffed at the ridiculousness of it all. Why doesn’t everyone just stay put, they asked. Why not accept that kings, like most things, are not perfect?

Having had several hours to think about it, the refugees had to admit that the notion of building a city from the ground up was harder to explain than the decision to leave Tyre had been. One by one, in homes all across Kition, Elishat’s people—a glass blower, a wine merchant, a tailor, people who had known all their lives who they were and who they would always be, struggled to peer into a hazy future. As the midnight hour came and went, reservations about continuing on the voyage pervaded their troubled minds.

On the other hand, the very same uncertainty that cast doubt on some took shape as a spirit of adventure in others—those who for some inexplicable reason tolerated and even relished the unknown. Doubt never penetrated their thoughts. Worry was an emotion to be tamed, not indulged. Moreover, they were not alone. As the hours of that watershed night crept toward dawn, some Kitions, too, contemplated joining the quest for a new land.

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