The Saffron Pact

The subterranean magazines of Knossos smelled of dry cedar beams and ancient, empty clay. Row upon row of massive pithoi stood shoulder-high in the dim stone corridors, their bellies hollow. Last season's barley was gone, reduced to a dusting of pale chaff across the flagstones. You trailed your fingers along the grooved rim of a jar that should have fed three hundred families through the coming heat, feeling the cool grit beneath your skin. A tread rang on the ramp outside, followed by the clinking weight of greaves. Hektor stepped through the low entryway, ducking his head to clear the lintel. His bronze-plated cuirass caught a blade of late-morning sun cutting down from the lightwell. He had left his retinue in the central court, slipping down into the temple stores alone. Sun-bronzed and smelling of salt wind and hot leather, he paused, his curly black hair damp against his brow, the thin scar across his left temple pale against his skin. "The Council meets in the hall above," you said, keeping your voice low, though your chest tightened at the sight of him. "Phaedra is already counting every bushel your ships have docked at Amnisos. You should not have come down here." "Let h…