People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (22 page)

"Ai, you are right," Klutaimnéstra sighed, looking fondly at the tall and slender king.  "You must forgive my temper.  I am so used to Agamémnon's thoughtlessness that I forget myself.  Yes, esteemed husband, by all means, send word to the families of the captives.  That is, I would not bother with Poluqónta's people.  With six wounds, he has surely died by now.  But, certainly, write to the other mothers and sisters."

aaa

No word came from the distant island of Alásiya before Kep'túr's festival of Kalamáya, the feast of threshing.  Growing more nervous as the holy day approached, Odushéyu ordered the bulk of his ships out into the waters of the Inner Sea, though they were to remain close to shore.  He and a few of his helmsmen of rank stayed ashore with Idómeneyu for the festival itself.  But then the exiles would be gone, with or without the company of any high-born Kep'túriyans.  He and his men were anxious to be on their way, now that the month of sailing was coming to an end.

While the residents of the palace waited in Knósho for the return of their longboats, the people of the surrounding countryside prepared to thresh what little barley had grown the past winter.  Singing to the dying Kórwa, the women carried flails and wide, flat shovels to the threshing floors, while the men bore the harvested sheaves.  Shepherd boys prepared to lead their flocks up to the mountain pastures, and, before they left, they drew lots to select a lamb for sacrifice.

The dethroned queen of Kep'túr slit the throat of the young animal upon the broad, stone-paved, threshing site that served Knósho's surrounding fields.  Around Médeya, the country women ululated the cry that aroused the attention of the gods, running their tongues rapidly from side to side.  A young woman, old enough to marry but still in her mother's house, held the bowl that caught the lamb's blood.  The old men strewed the animal's carcass with stalks from the first sheaf of grain.  The first kernels of barley were crushed between stones and mixed with the sacrificial blood.  In a procession through every farm village in a circuit around the capital city, queen Médeya blessed the threshold of each dwelling with a few drops of the holy concoction.

Dancing and singing around the threshing floor, the people reenacted the legend of Kórwa's descent to the world beneath the earth.  The older, unmarried girls danced and collected flowers, as Kórwa had done in times so long past that no numbers could count the years.  Shepherd boys watched, their flocks grazing in the fields close by.  Young and old, male and female, they sang of the god beneath the earth who had shaken the ground and opened a great chasm.  The young goddess had fallen into the depths of the earth, hidden from the sight of her mother, the great goddess Dánwa.

Singing laments for the dying goddess, weeping for their own misfortunes, the people threshed the grain, trampling the sheaves on the hard floors until the kernels were knocked loose from the dry stalks.  Next, they winnowed, tossing the sheaves into the air with their broad paddles, letting the wind catch the chaff and carry it away.  They worked at this until only the edible kernels of barley remained on the threshing floors.  Then they gathered up the grain into sacks of linen, and carried these to the vast storerooms of the palace at Knósho.  In the many storerooms of the labyrinthine dwelling, they poured the symbol of the divine Maiden into storage jars beneath the floor.  Into great urns, large enough to hold two grown men, they laid their meager bounty.  The country people thronged back through the winding corridors of the citadel, singing sadly of Kórwa, the spirit of the grain, and her descent beneath the earth.  As if mourning one of their own dead, the women scratched their cheeks and beat their unclothed breasts, their long hair falling unbound about their shoulders.

The rest of the ceremony followed when darkness fell.  The women carried torches while the men donned masks of animals and dáimons, goat horns on their heads.  With wineskins and baskets of fruit, the celebrants made the circuit of all the homes in the lower town of Knósho.  Waving green branches everywhere they went, the celebrants strewed on each threshold a handful of the newly threshed grain.  The inhabitants of each house sipped the sour wine carried by the masked revelers.  While they drank, the torch-bearers sang, "Take the good fortune that we bring from the goddess.  Take the good health that we bear from Mother Dánwa."  Their funereal gloom began to lift as the wine worked its magic.

When the first hint of dawn lightened the eastern horizon, the revelers ascended the hillside to the palace of Knósho for the last stop and the final ceremony.  Wánaks Idómeneyu himself greeted them at the main entrance and gathered all the participants into the largest courtyard for a feast.  The native Kep'túriyans ate their fill for the first time in several months and drank the last of the imported stores of wine from their king's treasury.  As their bellies filled, the crowd in the courtyard grew rowdy and loud.  Those who had fought in the Tróyan war began recalling the glory they had won in battle.  Those whose hair was white with age were reminded of the still greater glory of Kep'túr in past centuries, when the island had been ruled by the half-divine Bull king, the Raya, the Shining One.

Quietly, Peirít'owo complained to his royal father that the guests kept sneaking into the rooms of the palace.  "No doubt they are looking for some bits of treasure to steal," the young prince said bitterly.

King Idómeneyu ground his teeth with suppressed anger, but he counseled patience.  "While the commoners are here, we Ak'áyans are outnumbered.  We cannot take any action against them now, my son.  But take note of who the thieves are.  When they are back in their homes, we can visit them one at a time and take back what is ours."  The royal father and son were soon interrupted by one such Kep'túriyan returning from a foray into the king's apartments.

"Now it is time to choose the p'ármako," announced the tallest of the revelers from behind a griffin mask, its great curved beak hiding his face too well for the royal family to guess his identity.  "Who will take on the evils of this land tonight?  Who will be driven into the sea when the sun comes up?"

Just as the question was being asked, Odushéyu caught a bear-masked man entering the courtyard from a palace corridor, something hidden under the shepherd's tunic.  The It'ákan angrily tore the clothing from the Kep'túriyan and a painted vase fell from the folds, shattering on the paving stones.  The throng fell silent and all eyes focused on the It'ákan leader.  Odushéyu felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.  He sensed himself about to be designated the p'ármako, the scapegoat who was to be chased to the sea to rid the countryside of evil.

"Odushéyu is my guest," Idómeneyu called out, as he realized the meaning of his people's change of mood.  The king tried his best to sound commanding and strong in spite of the perspiration now streaming from his temples.  "He cannot be the one.  I will give you a servant from my own household…."

From the courtyard wall, a skeletal shepherd boy gave a sudden shout.  "Ships!" he cried.  "Our ships have returned from Alásiya."  The final act of the ceremony of spring was forgotten in the rush to the shore.  Eastern grain would be on those longboats, something Kep'túr had never had to buy before.

But at the port, the men who stepped onto the shore wore gloomy faces.  Nor did they look well fed.  Only a few of the Kep'túriyan vessels had sent ferries to the beach, the rest holding their position out in deeper water.  As pitifully few sacks of grain came from the boats on shore, the helmsmen sought Idómeneyu to explain.

Touching his hand respectfully to his heart and forehead, the oldest of the navigators said, "Wánaks, we sailed to Alásiya just as you commanded.  But we could not buy enough grain with the bronze we carried.  The metal is worth too little and barley is too expensive.  The drought has stricken all the eastern lands, Assúwa, Kanaqán, and beyond.  They say in Alásiya that the only civilized land with plenty of food is Mízriya.  Every eastern king wrote to the Mízriyan emperor, asking for barley and wheat.  So Alásiya's every city is full of Mízriyan merchants.  But those southern dogs are selling their grain at higher prices than anyone has ever heard of before.  A man's weight in bronze hardly brings enough to feed one family for a month.  Owái, wánaks Idómeneyu, these are evil times!"

That final comment was the catalyst for the anger of the villagers.  The crowd burst into sudden violence.  Men threw off their masks to attack the Ak'áyan overlord with their bare hands.  Women beat the king’s guests with their lighted torches.  Even the waving laurel branches became weapons and the Ak'áyans were thrashed like pack animals.  Caught without spears or armor, Idómeneyu and his visitors leaped into the water and swam for the ships, anchored just off the coast.  Some of their attackers followed them, quickly stripping to bare skin to make the swimming easier.  Fishermen scurried to their small boats, carrying torches, intending to burn their king's ships.

Several of the longboats further out pulled up their anchors at the first sign of trouble.  Running out their oars, the rowers moved the ships out to the open sea as quickly as they could.  Those closer to shore could not escape so easily.  As fishing boats and warships collided, commoners boarded the longboats, knocking surprised oarsmen into the water.  On the low decks of the vessels still at anchor, men were soon fighting with fishing tridents and oars.

Other Kep'túriyans turned away from the sea, women and unmarried girls, shepherd boys and old men.  They carried their torches back to the sprawling palace and set it aflame.  As smoke rose over Knósho, those Ak'áyans still ashore were overwhelmed by the native Kep'túriyans and beaten to death, slaughtered to the last man.

aaa

As the people of Attika celebrated their more peaceful festival of threshing, Menést'eyu led two men to a storeroom in At'énai's palace.  One of the men carried a torch, since, although it was midday, virtually no light entered the isolated corridor.  The second man carried a jug of water in one hand, a loaf of bread in the other, covered over with mold.  Both wrinkled their noses in disgust as they approached the door of the small room.

"By the goddess of death herself," cursed the torchbearer, "you can smell the Argive swine from out here!"

Menést'eyu motioned toward the door's heavy bolt and drew his dagger.  "Open it," he commanded.

The servant laid down his jug and bread and slid the wooden bolt to the side.  Throwing open the door, he covered his nose with his hand at the stench of blood and urine.  Inside, four men lay on the floor of a windowless room that was barely large enough to contain them.  Their hair and beards were matted, their bodies blackened with dried blood and their own filth.  Three pairs of eyes turned away from the sudden light, and dirty hands rose instinctively to ward off blows.

"Is he dead?" Menést'eyu demanded, pointing at the one who did not move.  When no answer came from the living, the Attikan kicked at the swollen foot of the man nearest him.  "Answer me, Diwoméde.  Is he dead?"

Diwoméde yelped and shrank away from the man at the door, cradling one arm, reaching for his injured foot.  "Yes," he answered weakly.  "Mégist'o is dead."

The kilted servant tossed the bread into the small, dark chamber and placed the jug on the floor by Diwoméde's feet.  He grasped the ankles of the corpse and began to drag it from the room, grunting.  Beside Diwoméde, a small man tore at the moldy bread with swollen and shaking hands.  The other two prisoners made no move toward the food.  One lay still, clutching his abdomen, his half-closed eyes unaware of events around him.  The other coughed repeatedly, raining blood and phlegm on his neighbor.

"Please," Diwoméde gasped, shakily pushing himself up to a sitting position.  "Menést'eyu, for the sake of the goddess, give us more water, enough to bathe our wounds."  But the Attikan qasiléyu did not respond.  "By Díwo, we fought together at Tróya," the captive leader cried in desperation, leaning his fevered head against the stone wall.  "If you mean for us to die, at least do not dishonor us completely.  Run us through with your spear.  Death from starvation and rotting wounds is no way for a warrior to end his life."

Before the prisoner could finish his plea, Menést'eyu had closed and bolted the storeroom door.

aaa

Odushéyu's small contingent was reduced to ten ships by the marauding Kep'túriyans, Idómeneyu escaping his vengeful people with scarcely twice that.  Only those ships in the deeper water survived the rampaging crowds.  Even some of those were burned or, their slender hulls hacked open with axes, they ended up sinking before they made it out of Knósho's harbor.  With their backs bruised and faces bloodied, the combined exiles rowed toward the north, making for Meneláwo's realm.  There, at least, they would find safety, if not new homes, they told each other.  If Lakedaimón's war-weary king would not arm them or join an expedition to regain their thrones, he would at least have men and ships to accompany them to Mukénai.