Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [193]
The shrine of Venus was here. The Byzantine voices, quoting, laughing, singing, spoke of it every evening. Here Paphian Aphrodite was born – not sweetly from the foam, said the voices, but from the gouting member of her sky-father Ouranos, scythed off and cast in the sea by his own monstrous son. Here, on the hill above her birthplace, was the great Sanctuary where the rites of the goddess were performed; to which her wreathed adorers made their way from the strand in torchlit, chanting procession. Here she was worshipped as Aphrodite, as Paphia, as Wanassa the Mistress; as Kypris, or the Lady of Copper; as goddess of Love, Beauty, Fertility; as, further back still, the divine Phoenician Astarte. Here, washed clean of its blood, stood the altar, and here, obedient to the goddess, maidens came once a year and settled like doves on the marble, crowned with hemp, bound to give themselves to whatever stranger brought his gold and his manhood to the myriad courts of her shrine.
Here were set the bubbling cauldrons to which were fetched aromatic herbs from the gardens of Erythrea, mingled with oils and Assyrian flowers. ‘And there the Graces bathed her with heavenly oil such as blooms upon the bodies of gods. And laughter-loving Aphrodite put on all her rich clothes, and leaving sweet-smelling Cyprus, went in haste towards Troy – where, of course,’ had said the voice of Valenza that evening, ‘she was the cause of the Trojan war. How beautiful the poems are! She passes over the land in her golden chariot; she rides the waves between Naxos and Cyprus. She takes as lover perfect Adonis, whose father Cinyras was richer than Midas or Croesus. And Cinyras, Ovid says, was the son of the founder of Paphos, born of Pygmalion and his warm-blooded statue. To the west – I shall take you there – was her fountain, where she bathed after giving herself to the crippled god Hephaistos … But we must stop! How tedious we are, talking of love! When would you like to see over the sugar mills?’ had said Valenza. The twittering voices of Valenza and Fiorenza, children of Naxos, granddaughters of John, Emperor of Trebizond, saying what they did not mean.
When, next day, Valenza repeated, warmly, her invitation to traverse the sugar estates of Episkopi, Katelina accepted. Somewhere in Cyprus, in a sugar-growing manor called Kouklia, Nicholas vander Poele was pursuing his desire to become rich as Croesus, rich as Cinyras who begot his fine son Adonis on his own daughter. What was his business was also hers.
She was taken, on foot and on horse, by Marco Corner himself, gross in build, domineering in manner except, she noted, when in the presence of the princess Fiorenza his wife. The great-grandfather of Marco Corner had been Doge of Venice, and for three generations the gilt star and red horn of the family had been attached to their palaces on the Rialto and here. Four hundred souls, black, white and brown, worked in Corner’s Cypriot fields, and he was their unquestioned master. She remembered her father, in Bruges, talking wryly about Marco Corner.
The sun, now, was losing its mildness. After the welcome green shade of the reeds, the yards shimmered with heat from the boiling-hearths. Shadow-streamers of steam wandered over the dust, crossed by the capering shadows of workers. In caps and drawers, tunics and aprons, men and children loaded and carried and dragged. Bent over the long wooden tables, the fish-muscled backs of the cutters gathered and flowed as if buttered. The staccato flash of their blades made her think of war-fleets and armies. Slit and chopped, the cane was carried from there to the presses. She followed, with Marco.
The hot air vibrated with noise: of shouting, hammering, grinding; the thunder of wheels and of barrels; the dashing of water; the hissing of steam. From the rollers exuded the smell, dense and herbal,