People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (2 page)

Meneláwo paused, considering, before approaching the young man.  Meneláwo was taller than Diwoméde and broader in the shoulders, though not as wide as T'érsite or as hairy.  Dressed in the same simple kilt, with the same matted hair and beard, he was distinguished from the rest of the men only by his mustache.  All others kept their upper lip shaved.  At Diwoméde's words, Meneláwo came toward the watching pair, limping stiffly.  He pressed his right arm to his ribs over a draining wound in his hip.  Dark circles rimmed his brown eyes, and his cheeks were hollow, his eyebrows perpetually knitted with pain.  Like the other men on that shore, his every muscled limb bore the signs of violence.

He stopped close to Diwoméde and T'érsite, and shut his eyes for a moment.  His breath came heavily and sweat gathered in his eyebrows despite the cool weather.  In a low, tired voice, he said, "Diwoméde, tell my brother I had to leave early.  Odushéyu sailed before dawn and I want to catch up with him when we beach our ships tonight."

"But Meneláwo," Diwoméde argued, "it is not safe.  It is late in the year for sailing.  Winter's storms are nearly upon us.  And the sea god must be angry with us for what we did to his city.  What chance do your people have of returning home alive?  Do not leave yet.  Stay for the sacrifice."

Meneláwo stared down into the waters lapping at his feet and shook his head.  "I came to Tróya for my wife.  I have her."  He turned and looked over the line of ships.  At the stern of each longboat the helmsman stood, a steering oar resting on the small platform at his feet, the paddle still in the air.  The oarsmen in the last ferry boat faced the king on the shore, waiting for his word to begin rowing.  "I am going."

"King Meneláwo, you may have committed no crimes last night in Tróya," T'érsite ventured to say.  "But others did.  I hear that Púrwo killed the king on Poseidáon's own altar.  That is bound to make the god angry with all Ak'áyans, guilty or not."

"Yes," said Diwoméde, "and Agamémnon is not offering any goat or sheep, not even a bull.  He is going to make this another Great Sacrifice.  A Tróyan princess is to die.  Stay.  Piyaséma's death will gain us the favor of the gods.  Then we can still hope for a fair wind, despite the season."

"And a good harvest next spring, maybe," T'érsite sighed, frowning at the sky.  "If our people delayed planting, waiting for us, the wheat will be up too late.  But if they went ahead with the sowing, they are praying for rain now.  And if the gods listen to them, our ships are sunk.  Only the gods can save us from disaster."

Meneláwo, too, looked at the grim sky.  "By the goddess, I wish I had a man who could prophesy the weather for me!" he cried.  But even as he said it, he shook his head at the others' pleas.  "Still, clouds or no, I cannot wait.  We should reach the island Ténedo before the sun is past its summit.  If the sky is as threatening then, we will pull our ships up on the beach and spend the night there.  But if the clouds pass, we will go on for Lámno.  I believe we can reach it before dark if we row steadily.  That is where Odushéyu will be.  He is the best mariner in Ak'áiwiya.  He will get us home safely if any man can."

Diwoméde let go of T'érsite's shoulder and took Meneláwo's arm.  "Think of your men, wánaks," the young man begged.  "Many of them are wounded, some badly hurt.  Some have old injuries that have not healed, that are festering.  They will not row equally.  The helmsmen will not be able to keep a straight course."

Meneláwo brushed the hand away and turned toward his lead ship.  "I am going," he repeated.  "Tell Agamémnon."

As he moved away, Diwoméde called out once more, "But the Great Sacrifice…"

The king shuddered.  At the prow of the last small boat, a huddled form began to sway from side to side.  With a furtive glance at the cloaked figure, Meneláwo urged him, "Keep your voice down, boy.  I do not want my wife to hear you.  She does not know yet about the first one."  He waved away any further objections before the younger man could voice them.  "I must go."

T'érsite quietly took hold of Diwoméde.  "Let him go.  Each king will decide for himself what is best for his people."

Diwoméde nodded and sighed.  Meneláwo climbed aboard his little vessel, aided by his men.  As the king boarded, the oarsmen bent to their task, moving the boat through the shallow water toward the lead ship.  When all had boarded the long, black vessel, Meneláwo stood on the stern platform and raised both his arms.  At that signal, the crewmen pulled up their stone anchors and twenty longboats and more rowed out of the harbor.  Diwoméde sat down to watch them go, his thoughts on their destination, the lands to the west across the Inner Sea.

aaa

On that distant, western shore, the people who had not sailed to Tróya toiled at their own labors.  A long procession of men, four rows abreast, lined an unpaved road running north and south.  The columns of men pulled at ropes of twisted flax, leaning until their heads nearly touched the ground.  Their ropes were tied to massive blocks of limestone, each roughly the height of a man.  The stones rested on wooden sledges, fifty men hauling each one to the foreman's chanted rhythm.  All but the chanter were naked, their dark, curly hair and beards clipped short and drenched with sweat from the hard work.

Atop each sledge knelt a half-grown boy, pouring water over the front of the construction of logs as it was dragged over the road.  Wetting both the sledge and the wooden planks embedded in the earth beneath, the salty liquid reduced the friction, making the hard work a little easier.  As the crews progressed, the boys periodically exchanged empty water jars for full ones, borne on the heads of an accompanying line of women.  A brisk wind tossed the women's ankle-length skirts and their long hair, braided to keep it out of their eyes.  They had to use their hands to balance the jugs on their heads because of that wind.  As each woman delivered her full jar and took up the empty one, she walked quickly back toward where the procession had begun at dawn.  There, a small collection of two-wheeled carts waited, loaded down with filled jars.  The oxen harnessed to these little wagons were thin, their ribs and backbones protruding.  They hung their heads listlessly as they waited to be driven forward.  Beneath the watchful eyes of two aging warriors, the women took up fresh burdens.  Without pausing, the workers turned again toward the great stones being dragged up an earthen ramp.

The foreman of the work crew chanted in a loud sing-song from where he stood, alone, at the foot of the ramp that led from the road to the top of low wall.  When the massive blocks reached the edge of the wall, the foreman directed the workers with a great deal of shouting and arm-waving, as they levered the stones from the sledge to the wall.  He nodded in satisfaction at the progress of the workers, as each stone was added to the slowly rising wall that crossed the land.  The lower courses of the great barrier completely crossed the narrow isthmus that kept the eastern sea from meeting the western.  This day or the next would see the completion of a second course of stones.  Barely visible in the distance, masons were at their work on top of the previous day's section of wall.  There they smoothed the upper surface of the second row of blocks with chisels of bronze and flint.  When one of the stone-workers seemed to turn in his direction, the foreman waved, beckoning them to come.

The foreman called for the rope-pullers to stop for a moment, as he waited for the masons to arrive.  Gratefully, the men released the stout ropes and stood, panting, their hands on their knees.  The foreman's long hair was repeatedly swept into his eyes by the breeze, as he stood waiting.  His sole garment, a kilt of striped linen, was lifted again and again.  In irritation, the man cursed, "To 'Aidé with this wind!"  But even as he said the words, he glanced nervously to the east, over the nearby sea.  The waters were calm and the sky above, clear.  Still his forehead was furrowed with concern.

Two of the kilted masons walked toward the men, across the top of the completed section of the wall.  With more shouts and gestures, they had the men lever the massive blocks still closer together, filling any gaps with smaller rocks.  When completed, the wall would not allow even a flat knife blade to pass between the stones.

On the other side of the anxious foreman, additional women were at work, carrying baskets of earth, raising the ramp that would allow the men to work on the next section of the wall, closest to the sea.  Following the slow and steady rhythm of their work songs, the women bent down in the surrounding empty fields.  Barefoot, dressed only in linen skirts, they scraped dirt into wide-rimmed baskets, and bore them on their heads toward the shore.  Others carried long, flat boards to press into the loose earth of the ramp.

The women had their own foreman, who stood at the foot of the new section of the growing ramp, urging on the slackers with shouts and an occasional blow from his walking staff.  Like the men's overseer, he sported long hair and a patterned kilt.  The wind troubled him as well and he struggled against it to keep a wool cloak around his shoulders.

As the day wore on, the work songs that had rung out from early morning fell into silence.  The only sounds from men and women alike were grunts of effort and labored breathing.  Blocks of stone inched up the ramp more slowly.  Women bearing water jars and baskets of earth on their heads moved less quickly.  The overseers' voices coarsened from shouting.

At last, the foremen gave the signal that all longed for, the call to rest.  The men dropped their ropes and levers wherever they were and found places to sit or lie down.  They sought flat areas below the wall, on the dry grass beyond the margins of the road.  The women laid their baskets down on the unfinished ramp and made their way back to the supply wagons.  From the sturdy carts, with their wicker sides and solid wheels, the women took up wineskins.  Throwing these over their shoulders, they carried the refreshment to the workmen.  Before the women, the men knelt in turn, their heads tilted back, to receive their wine portions in their open mouths.  Each woman made a spout, untying the leather cord at one end of the bag.  She controlled the flow of the liquid by pressing the leather between her thumb and forefinger.  The women pressed the spouts closed and raised them many times, as the men's thirsty lips closed around the last, red drops.  Only after all the men had been given their rations did the women sip their own.  Under the ever-suspicious eyes of the overseers, the women tied the bags closed again and returned them to the carts.  Then they, too, rested.

The women's foreman wandered over to join the men's overseer, calling, "Ai, Ark'esílawo, how long do you think it will be before we finish the wall?"

The men's foreman scratched his beard and fingered his clean-shaven upper lip before answering.  "That depends on the weather, of course.  If it does not rain, I expect we will finish before the winter solstice.  What do you think, Poluqónta?"

Both men looked up at the sky, shading their dark eyes with their hands.  Poluqónta growled in annoyance as the wind tore the black cloak from his body and tossed it to the ground behind him.  He recovered the garment, shaking it to remove the clinging dried grass, and wrapped himself once again.  "By Diwiyána, this wind has chilled me to my bones," he complained, shivering.

Ark'esílawo laughed.  "You talk like an old man.  It is not that cold."

The two foremen sat cross-legged on the yellowed grass beside the road, gazing over the eastern sea.  The water was dark and restless, with many white-capped waves.  "I have seen no hint of the ships," Poluqónta sighed.  "Do you think that wánaks Agamémnon will be back in Argo before the winter storms begin?"

"Why ask me?" Ark'esílawo grunted with another anxious glance out over the empty sea.  "I thought he would be home by the end of the summer and here it is the middle of autumn."

Poluqónta nodded gloomily.  "Yes, no one expected him to be gone long, not with that great army.  With so many soldiers and chariots, he should have been able to sack every city on the coast of Assúwa.  Ai gar, perhaps that is why he is so late.  He burned so many towns and took so much plunder, his warriors can hardly row the ships back across the Inner Sea."

Ark'esílawo put a dry blade of grass in his mouth and chewed, squinting again at the clear sky.  "Or it may be that the Assúwans prevailed and burned his ships.  It is just as likely that he is in bondage across the sea, held for ransom.  After all, his was not the greatest army in the world.  People say that the Náshiyan emperor has ten hundred chariots and ten times as many men."

Now it was Poluqónta who laughed.  "People tell many unbelievable stories, my friend.  I do not know what force Agamémnon met in Assúwa.  But I saw how many he took with him and Ak'áiwiya has never fielded a greater army."

His companion nodded, but his face was grim.  "Yes, it was large.  But what does that mean?  Half the men were not professional soldiers, just shepherds and carpenters, potters and farmers.  Who can say how such men will fight?  What madness possessed him to take commoners?  That was never our custom, whatever the Assúwans and Mízriyans may do across the seas.  No, war is the occupation of the high born, the harvest that of the low born.  Look what a heavy price the land has paid for that army.  There were not enough able-bodied men left at home to bring in the full barley crop.  Ai, if Agamémnon had to take so many, he should at least have waited until the end of spring."