Guest Post, Excerpt, & #Giveaway: A Murder of Furies (An Ancient Crete Mystery #3) by Eleanor Kuhns
- Archaeolibrarian
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
Book Details:
Genre: Historical Murder Mystery
Published by: Indie
Publication Date: January 31, 2026
Number of Pages: 274
Series: An Ancient Crete Mystery, Book 3
@writerkuhns @partnersincrimevbt
@edl0829 @partnersincrimevbt
Bronze Age Crete, 1450 B.C.E.
When Tinos, the High Priestess's consort, asks Martis to search for his missing daughter, Martis becomes involved in the dangerous politics between Crete and Egypt. A young Egyptian prince is courting Hele, the High Priestess's daughter, despite her persistent refusals. And despite the lobbying by Hele's brother, Khoranos, who seeks the Cretan throne with Egypt's help.
Then the High Priestess is found murdered. Martis discovers plans to kidnap Hele and she has to be spirited away to safety. Egyptian soldiers occupy Knossos and Khoranos installs his ally as the High Priestess.
Can Martis rescue the High Priestess's daughters and identify the murderer before Khoranos, with Egypt's help, takes the throne? Martis must embark on several dangerous quests to succeed.
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Although it was just late March, Crete was already growing hot. Sweating and panting after the bird dance, I pushed my mask to the top of my head. I sucked in deep breaths and flapped the long white sleeves, pinned to resemble wings. Air rushed over my damp arms and legs,
At least my dance was finished. Other dances would also be performed, and, in fact, the next one was already beginning. The younger girls, all maidens and too young to wear the red spotted scarf, were clad in bearskins. They danced to honor the Lady of Animals and Childbirth. I remembered that hot smelly costume from previous years. Now, at almost seventeen, I danced as a bird in a graceful circle of white-clad girls twisting around one another. I thought we really did look like flying birds; not imprisoned by the earth. We each wore the mask of a different species. Although I’d hoped to dance as a gull or an owl, I was only a sparrow.
The other bird dancers removed their masks and scattered into the audience to join friends and family. Except the vulture. Funny, I thought, I didn’t recognize the vulture. Now that I’d begun my agoge and visited the dorms regularly, I thought I knew all the young women – at least by sight. I certainly should know everyone who I danced with.
Despite the identical white gowns and the masks covering the faces, the bodies were difficult to disguise. This girl was heavier, that other one was as slim as a papyrus reed. Although every girl danced the same steps, some jumped higher and some twisted with an extra roll of the hips. Easy to know them even though we weren’t supposed to – for this short space of time we were the creatures represented by our masks. But I did not recognize the vulture. I squinted against the bright sun. I didn’t remember the vulture from the rehearsals either. And surely at least one girl was missing –
“If you’re Martis, the High Priestess’s consort wishes to speak to you,” said a treble voice behind me. I turned and looked first at the grubby little boy and then around at the crowd. I saw no sign of Tinos.
“Where is he?” I asked, my heart leaping.
At one time, I’d thought – hoped – Tinos and I had developed a special connection. But last fall, during the investigation into the murder of the bull dancer, we’d fallen out. I’d seen very little of him since then and only at a distance, as he conducted his duties. Sometimes I imagined we were still close friends. Other times I despaired we’d ever be friends again.
“I’ll take you to him,” the boy said, extending a grimy paw. I took hold and followed the boy through the crowd.
We went a distance from the theater, finally pausing at a copse of trees. Tinos waited within, almost unrecognizable without his headdress or jewelry. His long black hair had been pulled back and tied with a string. “Martis,” he said. As his eyes drifted from my hair to my white dress, his eyebrows rose in surprise. I touched my long hair self-consciously. I now wore it in the fashionable style - with most of it tumbling down my back except for the locks pulled in front of my ears.
“You’ve grown up? I always think of you in a boy’s kilt . . .”
“I wear that only when I am bull dancing,” I said shortly, affronted. Did Tinos believe I would be a child forever? I was old enough to marry - although I’d vowed before the Goddess that I never would.
Tinos nodded and stared over my head as though regretting this meeting. I could see he felt awkward, without the easy camaraderie we’d once enjoyed, and I was both sorry and angry with him. I’d looked forward to talking with him once
again and now he seemed, well, disappointed. “You wanted to
see me?” I asked, my tone taking on some sharpness.
He turned to look at me.
“That’s the Martis I remember,” he said, grinning for the first time. “Still as quick to anger as ever.” I went hot.
Unable to think of a smart response, I tossed my head.
“Have you seen Atana lately. I know you and my daughter are friends.”
I knew Atana of course and I’d made an effort to befriend her. At one point, I’d hoped to see more of Tinos, which hadn’t happened. Atana was only nine so I didn’t spend a lot of time with her.
I turned and looked over my shoulder as though I could see through the trees and the crowds beyond. Atana should have joined the younger girls in the bear dance but, because she was the High Priestess’s daughter, she’d been allowed to dance with the birds. Now I knew who’d been missing.
“Did you see her this morning?” Tinos continued, his words rushing out.
“No,” I said. “Didn’t you?”
“No. We – um - quarreled,” he admitted, his eyes seeking the ground beneath his booted feet. “I haven’t seen or spoken to her for several days.”
“Ah.” I said in understanding. Before I moved to the girls’ dorm, I’d been arguing frequently with my mother Now that I stayed occasionally in the dorm, I saw her less often and so we quarreled less. “I saw Atana at most of the rehearsals,” I said now. “How many days has it been since you’ve spoken to her?”
“Almost three. She’s been avoiding me. It was a very bad quarrel,” Tinos’s eyes slid away from mine. He took a deep breath and looked at me. “I’m worried about her.”
“Surely the High Priestess –“ I began. But Tinos was shaking his head.
“She’s too busy now,” he said. I narrowed my eyes at
him. Too busy to wonder where her daughter went? After so
many days without seeing me, my mother took pains to seek me out. “Atana talks about you,” Tinos continued. “She says you are
her friend.”
I stared at him. Friends? Sure, we were friendly, but she was more like my younger sister. We were the two outsiders. I’d just moved into the dorms, years after most girls my age, and I stayed there infrequently, so I didn’t know any of them well. I didn’t care to. They were all looking forward to marriage’ I wasn’t.
“Where would Atana go?” I asked. Atana, Tinos’s oldest child, was much shyer than her older half-siblings and did not make friends easily. Perhaps because of her position – Atana’s mother was the High Priestess after all, the other girls alternately teased or flattered her.
“That’s it, I don’t know,” Tinos said. A pleat formed between his brows and he suddenly looked tired. “But I am very worried. Will you ask the other girls if they’ve seen her?”
“Why can’t you ask them?” I asked. “They
would have to answer you.” As the High Priestess’s consort, I meant. Tinos was the most important man in Knossos.
The fingers on Tinos’s right hand began to twitch nervously. “I can’t,” he said at last. “It wouldn’t be wise. The High Priestess . . .” His voice faded and disappeared.
“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.
“Speaking to them would be easier for you.” Tinos tried again. “You see them regularly and no one will find it surprising if you talk to them. My appearance would cause too much comment.” He looked at me and I nodded. I was not so much around the younger girls but I did see them as they ran races and wrestled. “Well then,” he said as though it was all settled. “I just want to know she’s safe.”
“And if I find her?” I asked.
“Tell her I’m worried,” he said. “Would you ask her to
come home and visit me. And tell her – .” He paused. “Tell her I’m sorry. Will you do that for me?”
“Yes, all right,” I said. I did not believe this would be so difficult.
“And Martis,” Tinos continued, “if she objects or becomes angry with you, don’t argue.” He shot me a stern look from under his heavy brows. “Understand? Just come and tell me.” I nodded although I didn’t understand. Why would I quarrel with Atana? Why would Atana argue with me? More to the point: what exactly had happened between Tinos and his daughter? That was the real puzzle.
“I have to go now,” Tinos said, glancing at the sky. “It is almost time for the Showing. I’ll see you later.” He turned and started down the slope. I watched until he disappeared behind a thicket of trees.
I slowly made my way back to the throng of people gathered around the theater. I did not think I could force my way through the crowd to rejoin my fellow birds and besides I would not watch the Showing. Every spring the High Priestess and her consort copulated in full view of the people of Knossos. It was important for the fertility of this land. But now that I knew Tinos and knew him well, I couldn’t bear to see that ritual.
I pushed my way through the crowd at the bottom of the paved area. As I squeezed by a woman in the fashionable ruffled skirt and tight jacket, the lady wrinkled her nose and tried to move away. I guessed I stank of perspiration.
And then, with a collective sigh, everyone turned to look at the walkway below. The High Priestess, riding sidesaddle on a white bull, was approaching. Her unbound hair tumbled down her back and, instead of skirt and jacket she wore a loose white robe that left her neck and arms bare. Bronze bells hung from the bracelets on her wrists and ankles and they tinkled with every movement. The bull was also decorated; garlands of bright spring flowers festooned his horns and encircled his neck.
Usually, the High Priestess smiled and waved at the
people of Knossos but her expression today was uncharacteristically grim.
I turned to look at the top of the stadium. The bull-masked consort waited, glistening with water, as if he had just arisen from the sea. The huge white bull’s head covered Tinos’s head and part of his shoulders, the horns tipped with gold and glittering in the sun. Even though I was not supposed to recognize Tinos, even though who else could it be but the High Priestess’s consort, I’d have recognized him anywhere. His broad shoulders tapered to the narrow waist where the thick twisted scar was just visible as it reached his back. Once a bull leaper, the scar served as a reminder of the bull’s horn that had caught him and ripped open his side.
The white bull came to a halt and the High Priestess’s attendants helped her down. She walked the last few yards to the bed at Tinos’s feet. When she reached him she slid the robe from her shoulders and stepped out of it. But she did not unfasten Tinos’s loincloth, as she had done every one of the nine years previously. Instead, after an awkward few seconds, Tinos slid off the garment himself.
I turned and fought my way through the audience, arriving on the other side of the crowd gasping and trembling. I’d seen this ritual enacted almost every year of my life but a year or two ago I had found I couldn’t watch it anymore. I knew that the bodies coming together on the stage were not the Goddess and Her consort but the High Priestess and Tinos acting their parts. And knowing Tinos and wishing he had his arms around me made everything different.
I set off running, fleeing the central court, to hide in the room in which the dancers changed.
Researching the Ancient past
When I embarked on my research for my Bronze Age Crete series, I quickly discovered how more difficult it was going to be than my previous series. I expected it to be harder: in early America English was spoken. No one really knows what Bronze Age Cretans spoke although it is assumed it was a form of early Greek. It was a pre-literate society. Linear A, a writing system that was just beginning to come into use in 1450 B.C.E., was not commonly used by the general population. It was probably developed for tracking trade goods but we don’t know for sure; it still hasn’t been deciphered. It evolved into Linear B – and that was only finally translated in the 1950s. With no common writing system, there were no journals, letters, newspapers – sources I used heavily for my Will Rees series.
So, what did I use?
I started with Sir Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist who undertook extensive excavations of Knossos. When I read his book, I realized I would need to be critical; he advanced a number of imaginative suppositions with little evidence. I continued with a number of works discussing Evans, both pro and con. My husband and I went to Crete and visited both Knossos and the museum in Heraklion. It was there that I finally felt I was beginning to understand the Minoan culture a little bit more. (In fact, the cover of A Murder of Furies is a photograph of a restored mural in Knossos.)
Finally, since excavations continue, I subscribed to several Archaeology magazines. These were invaluable since the articles came with photographs of the excavations and the finds. Now I knew what a seal looked like. When I read that they knew that the Minoans worshipped a Supreme Goddess, I saw pictures of seals and other items where the female figure was gigantic in comparison to the male. I saw representations of the clothes, and photos of scraps of textiles. Photos offrescoes, sculptures, and the so-called Horns of Consecration spoke to the importance of the bull in this culture. More about this ancient society is being discovered every day.
From this evidence, the archaeologists made deductions about the culture that I could use.
With one caveat: the deductions are filtered through the archaeologists’ own biases. One of the most famous mosaics from Knossos is that of three figures grouped around a bull. From other art, and from the Theseus myth, we know the Minoans practiced a rite/sport in which teenagers ran at a charging bull, grasped the horns and flipped over. In this mosaic, two of the figures are white and one is brown. One archaeologist suggested that the Cretans used the same method that the Egyptians used in painting people; males were brown, females were white. Another archaeologist disagreed because girls couldn’t do this.
I disagreed with him and chose to make my protagonist at girl who becomes one of these bull leapers.
My Bronze Age Crete series is more imaginative than the Will Rees series; it has to be. We don’t know enough about the Minoans to fill in all the blanks. When writing about early America, the historical record is there.
Eleanor Kuhns is the 2011 Minotaur/Mystery Writers of America winner for first crime novel. She won for A Simple Murder and now has twelve books in the series.
A Murder of Furies is the third in the Bronze Age Crete Series which began with In the Shadow of the Bull.
A lifelong librarian, she transitioned to full time writing during the pandemic. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and her dog.
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I can certainly appreciate the research that goes into something like this! Great guest post.
Great showcase.