People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (3 page)

Poluqónta shivered again, huddled in his cloak.  "You are right about that.  He should have returned in time for the autumn sowing, too.  I am afraid this harvest will be no better than the last, even if it rains enough this winter.  Owái, two harvests lost in a row!  And the one before was meager enough.  The storerooms of the citadels are nearly empty.  Argo has fallen on hard times."

"Idé, what talk is this?" Ark'esílawo snapped, giving the other overseer an angry shove.  "We have only sown this year's wheat and already you call the harvest lost.  Are you trying to turn Díwo's Evil Eye against us?"  He quickly pointed his thumb, forefinger, and small finger at his companion and shot nervous glances at the sky.  "It may yet rain this winter, if Díwo so chooses."

"I am only saying what every man with any sense knows, Ark'esílawo," the women's foreman sighed.  "I have seen the depleted storerooms with my own eyes.  Ai, the wánasha has done what she could for the kingdom, taking her own slaves out of the flax fields, putting them to work alongside the country people.  But captive women, even those used to hard work, cannot do as much as the men they are replacing.  Queen Klutaimnéstra knows that Argo is in trouble, even if you do not."

Ark'esílawo regarded the other man with scorn.  "It is the wánasha Klutaimnéstra herself who is in trouble.  Argo will be fine, as long as Agamémnon comes home alive."

Poluqónta stared, perplexed.  "Why should the wánasha be in trouble?  Did she not send Díwo's priest to the sacred grove?  Did he not spend nine days praying for rain on Aígina's holy mountain?  Has the queen not given over her own serving women, her bath pourers, to carry water and wine for the men, here?  No, the queen has done all she can.  Just look at this wall.  What is its purpose, if not to protect us Argives?"

Again, his companion was unimpressed.  "Protect us from what?  From the north?  When Agamémnon sailed away, he had the support of troops from all of Ak'áiwiya, the north as well as the south.  What could possibly happen all the way across the sea to fill the queen with fear of Attika?  Ai gar, that is a weak country, backward and impoverished.  Attika could never hope to threaten the most powerful kingdom in Ak'áiwiya.  By the goddess, use some sense!  Attika's old wánaks is Agamémnon's ally."

"Ai, but that is the way of the world, is it not?" Poluqónta asked, not expecting an answer.  "When men go away to war, they leave their wives and children vulnerable to attack at home.  A woman alone has as much to fear from her husband's ally as from his enemy.  Wánaks Erékt'eyu would never lead Attika against us while Agamémnon was here.  You are right about that.  But, with Klutaimnéstra ruling in her husband's absence, there is no telling what he might do.  After all, the other wánaktes themselves led their troops to Tróya.  But Erékt'eyu only sent some of his men with one of his qasiléyus.  Why else would he stay in Attika, if not to take advantage of Agamémnon's absence and make war on Argo?"

Ark'esílawo dismissed that with an impatient wave of his hand.  "You have spent too much time among your serving women.  You are starting to sound like one."

Poluqónta retorted testily, "But there is this wall as evidence!  If there is no danger from our northern neighbor, why build this?"

His companion still shook his head.  "The drought is Argo's real problem and the wánasha does not want to face what that means.  But it is clear to every man and woman in the kingdom.  The gods are angry."

Poluqónta agreed.  "Yes, but who angered them, Klutaimnéstra or Agamémnon?  I say it was the wánaks.  He must have done some great evil across the sea."

"And I say it must be the wánasha," Ark'esílawo retorted heatedly.  "Look at her behavior since Agamémnon left.  She has taken her husband's cousin into her house.  I tell you, if Diwiyána withholds rain this winter, it will be to punish Klutaimnéstra's adultery.  Remember the dead season after the last harvest.  Did you ever see a summer as hot as the last one?  More babies died than ever before in a single season.  It was not only the people who suffered, either, or perhaps you were not aware of this.  The boys drove the flocks to the mountains early, but still there was not enough pasturage to keep them all healthy.  Scarcely half the lambs born last spring survived the summer.  What else could cause such deadly heat, if not the queen's sins?  After all, we always prospered under Agamémnon.  And under his father before him, for that matter.  No, I tell you, if the king returns, Argo will flourish again.  It will be just like when Divine Kórwa returns to her mother, and the earth blossoms again after the dead of summer."

"No, no, the wánasha is blameless," Poluqónta insisted stubbornly.  "She took Aígist'o into the palace to help her govern.  That is all.  A woman needs a man's counsel.  The queen is no adulteress, I am sure.  As much as I long for Agamémnon's return, I cannot help blaming him for Argo's misfortunes.  He was wrong to take so many commoners across the sea and wrong again to leave so early.  That must be what angered the gods."

Ark'esílawo would have argued, but Poluqónta quickly went on, his voice rising to drown out the other's.  "It is just as clear that Klutaimnéstra is the one to appease the gods, too.  She will send Aígist'o to the holy mountain again this spring.  He will pray at the sacred stream and dip an oak branch into the water, as custom demands.  Then a mist will rise, clouds will form, and there will be rain once more, all over Argo.  It cannot fail.  Of course, there must be an auspicious sacrifice also.  It will have to be better than last year's, too, something more valuable than a ram, to regain Díwo's good will."

"Idé, you are right about that.  Whoever angered the gods, a good sacrifice will surely appease them.  It will have to be an ox this time, no doubt, a bull for the Divine Bull."  Ark'esílawo felt his spirits lift at the thought.

Poluqónta remained somber.  "Perhaps another princess will have to die."

His companion quickly brushed that idea aside.  "No, no, there is no need to go to extremes.  Ip'emédeya's death was an extraordinary thing.  A man does not see a human sacrifice more than once in a lifetime."

The other man pulled his cloak up about his ears.  "I hope you are right."  The two sat in silence for a time, watching the empty sea, as the male and female laborers slept, sprawled across the fields on both sides of the road.  Poluqónta glanced at the wall, where the long-haired masons, too, were resting.  "Tell me, though, Ark'esílawo," he began, uncertainly.  "How do you explain this wall?  If Attika is not our enemy, as you claim, and if Klutaimnéstra is to blame for our troubles, why are we building this?  Why would the queen give up all her serving women for such a big, useless project?"

"To keep the people busy," Ark'esílawo answered easily, stretching out full length on the cracked ground.  "Klutaimnéstra does not want people to sit about idle when they are hungry.  They would begin to ask each other why times are so hard.  They would have to answer that the queen is to blame.  With her husband away and few soldiers remaining, she could easily be driven from the palace at Mukénai.  So, rather than see her subjects turn against her, she puts them to work, making them dependents of the palace.  She feeds them servants' rations to satisfy their bellies, and gives them walls to raise to keep their hands and minds busy.  If we finish here and Agamémnon is still not home, she will set us to work on a fortress somewhere.  We will enlarge the circuit walls, or add storerooms, or even rearrange the graves of the ancestors.  It does not matter what the specific task is, so long as it keeps the people busy."

Poluqónta looked doubtful.

"Just think about last spring in Mukénai," Ark'esílawo continued.  "Did you ever hear such lamenting at a harvest festival?"

Poluqónta frowned.  "It is the custom to mourn the death of lady Kórwa in the spring."

Ark'esílawo gripped his companion's arm.  "But did you ever hear such dirges?  Ai, the women lamented as wildly as T'rákiyan barbarians.  And what a procession came through Mukénai afterward!  That was part of no festival, no custom.  Farmers and herdsmen poured into the capital city.  These men were not latecomers, either, responding to Agamémnon's demand for more soldiers.  No, they brought their families and all their possessions with them, and they came from every outlying region.  Remember those wagons rattling, drawn by oxen that were hardly more than walking skeletons?  Those were refugees, my friend, people ruined by drought.  Many were from as far away as Enwáli and Arkadíya.  What would these people have done if Klutaimnéstra had carried on her life as normal?  Would those starving Ak'áyans have sat idly by, watching the queen's captive weavers growing fat on palace rations?  Do you think the farmers would have allowed their remaining livestock to die of thirst, while the queen's serving women filed past with jar after jar of water for her bath?  No, of course they would not!

"I tell you, Poluqónta, Attika is not our enemy.  This drought is a sign of the gods' anger with the wánasha.  And she knows it.  She is serving her own interests by giving up her slaves.  Just look at my workmen, here.  Less than half are Argives.  Klutaimnéstra wants these people, especially, to build this wall to keep them and the rest of her subjects from plotting her overthrow.  Owái, if only Agamémnon would come back and restore order.  Then we could go home again."

aaa

Twenty-eight long and narrow ships rode the waves of the Inner Sea, their beaked prows pointing southwest, toward Argo.  Beneath a leaden sky, naked, sun-browned men pulled at their oars.  Until they were out of sight of the land, they labored without speaking.  The only voices to be heard were those of the navigators, on the platforms at each ship's stern, as they called the cadence for the rowers.  Each helmsman, on his stern platform, craned his neck from time to time, straining to see the first of the twenty-eight ships.

When only the column of smoke was visible from the land behind them, a square of sun-bleached linen rose above the heads of the rowers in that first longboat.  "Raise the sail!" the helmsmen cried to the men in their own vessels.  Several rowers released their oars, allowing the paddles to lie flat against the sides of the longboat, held in position against oak tholepins by straps of leather.  The men prepared to raise the mast from where it lay, in the center of the ship.  Its thicker end they shoved down into the stand made for it, in the middle of the vessel.  A block of wood held it tight in its mooring.  Four ropes of twisted flax secured it upright, tied to the port and starboard sides of the narrow bow and stern.  From beneath the rowing benches, the men brought the sail, unwrapped its sheepskin covering, and attached it to the yard.  On either side of the lead vessel, a great square of linen rose above each black hull, ropes securing the bottom corners of the sails.

"The wind is strong," a thin oarsman observed hopefully, as the wind caught and billowed out the sail above him.  "At least we will have a little rest."  He sank down on his wet bench, rubbing his cold and aching arms.

aaa

On the shore behind the Lakedaimóniyan ships, Diwoméde washed his injured foot in the sea, grinding his teeth at the sting of the salt.  Beside him, T'érsite rinsed the linen bandage, casting sidelong glances at the younger man.  "You should have a woman do this," the gap-toothed soldier told him.  "A nice, submissive captive should be washing your laundry and binding your wounds."

"You know I did not receive a woman in the allotment," Diwoméde grunted, wincing as T'érsite wrapped the damp bandage around his foot once more.

"You could buy one," T'érsite suggested, helping the younger man stand.

Diwoméde was not hopeful.  "My best prize was the pair of white horses from T'ráki that wánaks Agamémnon awarded me.  They are dead.  All I received yesterday was bronze."  T'érsite said no more on the subject as he helped Diwoméde hobble back to his tent.

In the shelter, the young man sank down gratefully on his sheepskin pallet.  "Owái, T'érsite, my foot is killing me," he groaned.  "Are there any more poppy jugs?"

"I will see."

As Diwoméde lay flat and closed his bleary eyes, T'érsite once more left the tent and walked through the seaside encampment.  The men were up and about, the fires built up and crackling beneath caldrons of barley gruel and lentils.  Sitting around the rough hearths, the men drank mixed water and wine, dipping it from large, ceramic bowls.  "I killed four last night," one boasted, waving his two-handled cup.

"Idé," spat another, nursing a dislocated shoulder.  "You speared four little boys.  I may have killed only two.  But they were grown men."

The first angrily shouted in the other's face, "Boys?  They had full beards and wore bronze helmets!"