People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (15 page)

With increasing interest, Kashánda listened to the great king's passionate anger as much as to his words.  "What do you want me to do?" she asked coldly, when he finally fell silent.

"Can you not guess?  I want you to kill my wife," Agamémnon muttered, with an exasperated growl. "She is plotting against me, anyway, I am sure.  I doubt that she will let me near enough to slit her throat myself.  Kill her for me, Kashánda, I do not care how.  When she is dead I will make you my wánasha in her place."  He pointed to her abdomen, not yet swelling under the dark wool.  "I will even honor your children as my legitimate heirs."

The former princess hesitated no longer.  "I agree to this bargain, Agamémnon.  Now, have your qasiléyu bring a sheep for the sacrifice.  We must swear oaths over its blood."

The king of Argo nodded with grim satisfaction.

aaa

Diwoméde lay that night with his own captive woman in his arms.  Between layers of sheepskins, he lay with her head on his good arm.  With a warm smile, he asked, "So, Dáuniya, is a warrior a better master than a physician?"

Her dark eyes twinkled as she answered, "Much better."

"And a young man is better than a gray-beard?" he asked, pressing his forehead against hers.

"Yes, better," she smiled back.  "Best of all is the young man whose lips do not taste of bitter poppies."

He chuckled.  "If you say so."

"I do," she responded forcefully, though her smile remained.  Tenderly she stroked the smooth skin of his cheek above his beard.  "Next time, if you like, go on top.  I think your arm is strong enough now."

He lifted his right arm enough to see the scar below the shoulder, still pink with newness.  Rubbing the mark, he frowned.  "Yes, but my foot still bothers me.  Why is it taking so long to heal?"

"Because you walk on it every day and never let it rest," Dáuniya answered with authority.  She raised herself on her elbows and looked at him sternly.  Shaking a finger, she scolded him fondly, "If you want it to get well, you must lie about and let others do the work."

Diwoméde's smile was rueful.  "That is not up to me, Dáuniya.  When Agamémnon gives me an order, I must do whatever he says."

"But why?" the woman demanded, not convinced.  "I see Agamémnon give commands to other men, high-born wánaktes and qasiléyus.  These others turn around and make their subordinates do the actual work.  Why can you not do this?  Have T'érsite oversee the work on the palisade…"

"Be still," Diwoméde snapped.  "I am not just a qasiléyu.  Agamémnon is more than just my overlord.  But I do not expect you to understand such things."

Dáuniya frowned.  "I know that your king is also your father," she began hesitantly.  He stared hard at her as she spoke, surprised that she knew.  But he said nothing.  Encouraged, she continued, "I also understand that, because you are not his legitimate son, you have no royal rank.  This may have meant that your status was insecure at one time.  But surely after all that you accomplished at Tróya, Agamémnon must trust you."

"It is not so much a matter of trust," Diwoméde said, rubbing the scar on his arm.  "It is just that my father never…I mean to say that Tudéyu did not…"

As the qasiléyu groped for words, Dáuniya listened intently, perplexed.  Suddenly it came to her.  Sitting up abruptly, she announced with astonishment, "You want Agamémnon's approval.  You want your true father to be proud of you."

Diwoméde felt his face grow hot.  He was not sure he wanted this captive woman to understand him so well.  "It is not that.  King Agamémnon knows that I am wounded.  I am sure that he would not give me a task to perform if it were something another could do just as well."

"Ai, then, I hope that you are right," Dáuniya sighed, not believing him for an instant.  "At least all the building is done.  Perhaps the high wánaks will let you rest now."

He turned his eyes from hers, solemn and grim.  "Listen, Dáuniya.  There is something I must do.  I know you do not like it, but I must have one more poppy jug at the midwinter feast.  Afterward I will do as you ask and give it up."

"Why one more?" Dáuniya asked, frowning suspiciously.  "What must you do?"

He returned his eyes to her face with some irritation.  "Do not ask so many questions, woman.  I am a qasiléyu, a man of high rank.  You are nothing but a captive.  You do not need to know what I do or why I do it."

The young woman laid her head on his chest with another, deeper sigh.  "I am sorry, my lord."

He stroked her hair, thinking deeply.  "There is something else, Dáuniya.  You must stay indoors, here in my hut, during the festival."

She lifted her head, her mouth open to protest.  But the harshness that she saw in his face stopped the words before they left her lips.  Icy fingers gripped her soul and she did not dare ask the question on her mind.  Putting her head down again, she said only the obedient phrase, "Yes, qasiléyu."

"Ai, you do not have to call me that now, when we are alone," he told her, irritated still, but softening.

She raised her head again, a mischievous grin on her face.  "Yes, beloved," she said, emphasizing the second word.

Diwoméde laughed.  "Ai, woman, you are incorrigible.  You cannot fool me with endearing words.  You do not love me.  Captives have to say things like that because they have no choice of husbands."

"Idé, is that so?  I had as much choice as you did when you picked me," she countered, in mock indignation.

"Ai gar, sit up and tend to my foot," he growled, waving her away.  But he smiled as she rose obediently, wrapping herself in a woolen cloak against the northern chill.  As she took his injured foot in her lap and began to unwind the bandage, the qasiléyu continued to speak, to distract himself from the pain that he knew was coming.  "I should not have listened to T'érsite when he told me about you.  Odushéyu gave me good advice.  He said I should buy myself a girl who was still a child, so I could raise her myself.  Then I could make her into the kind of woman I really wanted.  Obedience, now that is what makes a good concubine."

Dáuniya cleansed the qasiléyu's wound with gentle fingers, dipping a bit of sheep's wool in a bowl of mixed water and wine.  He winced when she scrubbed away the surface granulation where the arrow had once pierced his foot.  But he did not pull his foot away.  As she worked, Dáuniya cheerfully scoffed at what he told her.  "Yes, raise a little girl and make a woman of your choosing.  That would be good for you when you are young and strong.  But what would happen when you grew old and feeble?  Your concubine would still be in her prime, then.  And she would make you regret all the terrible things you did to her.  She would pay you back, blow for blow, shame for shame."

Diwoméde stared at her in disbelief.  "Have I shamed you?  When?"

She looked up at him in surprise.  "No, no.  I was not talking about myself, beloved.  I chose you for my husband, do you not remember?"  With a slight frown, she turned back to his foot.

He was silent as the woman poured oil over the wound that had nearly severed his two smallest toes.  As Dáuniya began to wrap the foot in fresh linen, Diwoméde quietly repeated, "Stay indoors at the festival."

"Yes, Diwoméde," she whispered.

aaa

At the feast of midwinter, the Ak'áyans donned carved, wooden masks according to T'rákiyan custom.  Throwing heavy, skin cloaks over their shoulders, guests and hosts alike danced as bears about a flaming bonfire in the center of Lukúrgu's northern village.  In a spiraling line, the few T'rákiyan women remaining in the fort danced, their long hair falling loose to their knees.  They clashed bronze plates together, singing the praises of the lady Dodóna and her beloved Diyúnt'u.   The men made their own larger spiral lines, dancing alongside the women, or playing panpipes, shouting the names of the divine lovers throughout the dark night.

Intoxicated by the driving rhythm, some of the dancers began to break from the crowd by twos, a man and a woman, arm in arm.  They ran from the fireside to hide in the darkness where they lay together in anonymity.  Those remaining in the light slowly increased the pace of their song, building to a climax of noise and emotional frenzy.  Among the other women, captive and free, Kashánda danced from sunset to moonrise as if her heart had never known a single sorrow.

When the couples began to file away from the crowd, she made her way to the paramount chieftain's side.  She clasped Lukúrgu's hand in both of hers and whispered in his ear, "Come with me and I will show you where I have hidden the largest part of Tróya's wealth.  I do not want the Ak'áyans to enjoy it, not after the evil deeds they have committed against my people.  I will entrust it to you alone."

The chieftain happily beckoned to a half-grown boy, dancing at his side, to follow them.  "Come with me, my son," Lukúrgu urged.  Leaving the revelers, the priestess, the chieftain, and his child made their way to the cottage of the Ak'áyan overlord and crept inside.   Inside the cabin, the darkness was pierced only by a few indirect rays of moonlight.  From the doorway, the boy suggested that they wait for him to bring a torch.

But Kashánda would not hear of it.  "One of the Ak'áyans would surely see the flames and follow us out of curiosity.  It is best if we are thought to lie together like the others who left the fire."

Outside, the celebration neared its peak as a small horse was released into the frenzied crowd of dancers.  With uninhibited screams from the women and shouts of "Bakk'ó!" from the men, the maddened T'rákiyans fell upon the animal, determined to kill it with their bare hands.

Diwoméde leaped forward from the shadows where he had been hiding, as Kashánda lured her victims into the cottage.  The qasiléyu pinned the surprised chieftain's arms behind him.  Three Ak'áyans of lesser rank helped him wrestle Lukúrgu to the ground and held him there.  A fourth caught the T'rákiyan's son and dragged him, screaming, into the windowless hut.

Kashánda drew a dagger from beneath her cloak and held it high, where the faint moonlight caught the bronze, glinting with a faint yellow light of its own.  "You killed my younger brother, Lukúrgu!" she cried, her voice as harsh as a crow's call.  With furious hands she grasped the short hair of the T'rákiyan boy, jerked his head back, and slit his throat beneath his wooden mask, before he could raise his hands to defend himself.  The child collapsed in a quivering heap, black blood streaming over the floor.  The boy's father cried out in fury and anguish, but the four Ak'áyans were too strong for him.  For a moment, he managed to free one arm, but was quickly pinned again.  He continued to bellow, a maddened bull of a man, as Kashánda advanced upon him with her blade.

"The death of your son will be your last sight on this earth," she shrieked and drove the knife into each eye, enough to blind him, but not deep enough to kill him.  With hysterical laughter, she backed away with bloody hands and began to dance once more.

Diwoméde with his men released the howling chieftain and disappeared into the surrounding gloom.  They crept toward their own huts, making their ways through unsuspecting, wildly dancing and music-making barbarians, where they took up all their battle-gear.

Alone in his agony, Lukúrgu lay screaming and writhing in the cabin of the wánaks.  "You will pay for this," he cried, clutching at his burning face.  "Lady Dodóna damn you all to horrible deaths!  May the unborn child be torn from your womb, Kashánda!  Let it die without a name!  May your own kin strike you down, Agamémnon!  Let your household be consumed by its own evil!  May all Ak'áyans drown in the arms of the sea goddess!  Kubíla take them, take them all!  Send them down to Zalmóksu!  Torment them forever in the eternal dark."  But, by the fireside, the crescendo of shrieks rose as the horse died, drowning out the chieftain's curses.

aaa

Agamémnon had Diwoméde assemble the war leaders of Ak'áiwiya just before dawn as the unsuspecting T'rákiyans were seeking their beds.  Summoned by quiet messengers, the lawagétas gathered in the overlord's cottage, each bearing no weapon but the dagger always at his side.  As most of the T'rákiyans slept and a few rubbed their bleary eyes in bewilderment, the high wánaks announced to his troop leaders what his concubine had done.  Overriding their murmurs of shock and dismay, he declared, "Kashánda's cause is just.  The vengeance of the Tróyan priestess is terrible, I will agree.  But it was deserved."