People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (30 page)

"Now, where do you think that Alásiya get all the wheat and barley that it sells at such high prices?" Mirurí asked with his bold, bright smile, ever the optimist.  "It is from Mízriya, of course.  I am telling you, men, we should go south to the source of wealth itself, while it is still rich.  Attack a Mízriyan outpost, as we planned before.  What is stopping us?"

But Idómeneyu could not be convinced of the wisdom of a southern expedition.  "You may call yourself the Great Wánaks and overlord of Ak'áiwiya," he said to Odushéyu, "and that title may fool your Assúwan victims when you take their last bit of bronze.  You may even fool the Náshiyan emperor, surrounded by enemies on all sides as he is.  But your allies know you for a pirate and nothing more.  I know perfectly well that you cannot take on a world power.  Tushrátta, for one, agrees with me on this."

Tushrátta, however, followed his usual tack and refused to choose among the alternatives.  He only sighed and pointed out with evident regret, "If only Ainyáh did not have kinsmen in Alásiya!  The rich island itself would be a perfect target.  Just think of all the bronze they are collecting there!"

Ainyáh wrested the wine jug from the Lúkiyan and refilled his own cup.  "I am tired of all this arguing," he announced.  "I have contacted Madduwátta, the newly independent king of Lúkiya."

"What?" cried Tushrátta.  "I cannot believe that the little mouse has broken with his weasel of an overlord!"

"He has," Ainyáh answered icily.  "Is that not what I just said?  Now, I sent Madduwátta a message, inviting him to join our proposed Mízriyan expedition.  Although he refused to come himself, he sent twenty ships filled with men hungry for adventure.  They are here in Millewánda's port.  I just got the word at daybreak, this morning.  Let us go south before the season of sailing begins and attack them before the time for war really gets going.  That way, even if we are still a little short-handed, we will have the advantage of surprise on our side."

Anxious to bolster his own cause, Mirurí hopped to his feet, despite his surprise at the Kanaqániyan’s sudden support for his position.  "Ainyáh is not the only one who sent for reinforcements.  Some of my kinsmen from Libúwa have come here, too, bringing recent news of the fabled southern empire.  Their words are most encouraging."

"Never mind the words," Ainyáh grunted.  "Did they bring ships?"

"Indeed, they did," Mirurí chuckled, almost overcome with emotion at the idea that, at long last, his long-desired expedition might become a reality.  "Half a dozen of them, each one filled with adventurous Libúwans and disgruntled mercenaries they recruited in Mízriya.  The Black Land has had years of ample floods and harvests greater than any seen before!" the Libúwan went on, fire burning ever brighter in his black eyes at the thought of the wealth that might soon be theirs.  "This excess grain has brought unparalleled riches to the people as well, since nations all around the Great Green Sea are clamoring to buy at any price.  Nevertheless, Mízriya has suffered its share of difficulties, in the past years.  The old king, Ramusís, is dead, after more than forty years of rule.  I can hardly believe it!  That is the best thing of all about this report that I bring you."

Idómeneyu frowned.  "I have heard of this Ramusís.  He was a powerful warrior when he was young and presided over the greatest expansion of his kingdom's borders that the world has ever seen.  He built more monuments of stone than any previous monarch and kept a harem that was larger and filled with of wives more beautiful than any ever recorded.  It was he who had the eastern desert pierced by a canal, so that merchants could sail from the Aigúpto River directly to the Reed Sea and the incense country of Páwant.  I always heard men say that the power of Mízriya would be incontestable as long as Ramusís was on the throne."

"All that you say is true – and more!" the Libúwan navigator admitted, with a gleam in his dark eyes, "but this same Ramusís had the terrible misfortune to live too long.  His hundreds of wives and concubines have all died of old age and so have most of his children.  Believe me, he had stables and courtyards full of them!  It is his thirteenth son, do you hear, unlucky thirteen, a man about whom nothing seems to be known, who has now come to the throne, at long last.  He reigned beside the old man in the last several years but is already dying of old age himself!  What is more, this Mirniptáha is a scribe, not a military man!  He will never be able to hold his western frontier against my people.  My uncle has already taken over a third of the river delta!"  Mirurí was practically dancing in his glee.

"I find that hard to believe," Odushéyu groused, in his reluctance to yield primacy in any future expedition to another man, "a great empire unable to hold off a band of nomads?"

Mirurí laughed at the balding exile’s ignorance.  "We are nomads because of our very natures, we men of Libúwa, not because we were forced from settled villages like you, seaman.  My people have always been restless.  Our feet would not allow us to remain in one place for very long.  So, the Red Land suited us, and we wandered about in the desert following our flocks of sheep and goats as they grazed, either trading or raiding the settled villages for whatever we could not make or raise ourselves.  But now, the rain has completely ceased to come to the desert.  It is a sign from the Divine Ram, Amúnu.  'Leave the dry, red earth,' he is telling our tribes, 'and go to live in the Black Land by the sweet river!'  Yes, that is the meaning of this drought, I tell you.

"My father, Dawúd, is now paramount chieftain of our desert nation, and all the tribes are united under him.  It was always his dream to join with the cattlemen of northern Mízriya, who are our kinsmen.  When I was a child, my father led a raid, every year, on the rich cattle country of the Aigúpto delta.  Always he was turned back.  'But someday,' he would always say, 'the soft men of the southern riverbanks will become weary of fighting us.  They see the north as an evil place, nothing but swamps and empty fields.  The high-born Mízriyans in the south despise their own brethren who live in the delta, you see.  In the end,' my father told me, 'they will abandon the north to us.'

"That day has come at last, I tell you.  The whole Mízriyan empire is suffering from the neglect of two weak emperors, the first who lived too long, and the second who came to the throne too late in life.  Northern temples of the delta never know whether they will receive their allotments of bronze and grain and beer – it is no longer just a question of when but of whether the shipments will come at all!  City officials can no longer force the country people to pay their taxes, either, for the soldiers are continually deserting their posts, leaving the officials short-handed.  Even the Great Canal, that miraculous work that cost Great King Ramusís such time and effort, has been completely abandoned and allowed to fill up with silt.  It is useless now, as if it had never existed.  My father is pressing deeper into the eastern delta all the time.  No army has even come to attempt to drive him back to the desert, none at all!"

"How many cities has he sacked?" Tushrátta asked, suddenly interested.

Mirurí's eyes dropped to the floor.  "Ayá, now, he has not yet actually taken any fortresses," he admitted.  "So far, it is just a matter of villages and farms and cattle country.  But the Mízriyan nobles and their armed men are trapped behind their walls in countless places.  Even if it turns out that we are unable to storm their citadels and take them, still, the Mízriyan army cannot oppose my people in the countryside.  It is an excellent time to strike at a Mízriyan outpost.  I tell you, my friends, if Mirniptáha cannot even hold his own northern border in the Black Land itself, there is absolutely no way that he can send an army to his dependent cities anywhere else in the southern empire.  In fact, Mízriya's own northern coast is completely vulnerable to attack!"

In the course of the telling, Odushéyu’s attitude had turned completely around.  The northern tin route, with its promise of dangers, both mortal and immortal, was forgotten.  The mariner was elated.  "How can you argue with that?" he demanded of his fellow Ak'áyan king.  "Ainyáh's tales have frightened you away from the north.  East and west are starved nearly to death, not to mention stripped of metal.  Where else is there for us to go now but south?"

"There are lands further west than Ak'áiwiya," Idómeneyu countered, still uncertain.  "I have heard that the ítalo country has bronze and cattle…"

Mirurí spat.  "I have been there many times.  Italo has a few spindly goats and some copper riddled with impurities.  We have as much in the desert.  If you are content to be poor, we can all stay at home!  No, my men are thirsty for more."

"So are mine," Ainyáh complained.  "In another month we will have spent so much for grain that we will nothing left to show for all the effort we made through the whole of last summer.  If we cannot do any better this year, we might as well go home now and start counting the dead!"

Idómeneyu agreed at last.  As the country people gathered Assúwa's meager harvest from the parched fields, bewailing the death of the divine child of the grain, the Ak'áyans set sail with their allies, men of Lúkiya, Tróya, Libúwa, and Kanaqán.  The journey began under good omens, as they left the coast for the nearby Ak'áyan islands.  As they approached Wórdo, off the southeastern corner of Assúwa, the weather changed.  The air was moist, even over the land.  Wórdo, they discovered, had received its usual proportion of rain the previous winter.  Nor had there been a drought on the surrounding, smaller islands.  It was an encouraging beginning.

Still, even the queen of the island of Wórdo was surrounded by restlessness and discontent.  Food was scarce despite the bountiful harvest there, due to an ever-growing tide of refugees from the mainland.  Among the well-fed, high-born islanders, the army of exiles found many men who were anxious to join their campaign, former warriors who were eager for battle and who had not forgotten Agamémnon's recent victory over the Náshiyan empire.  The island's wánasha was anxious to send these soldiers elsewhere with their ambitions and their spears.  The swelling of the exiles' ranks, too, was most encouraging.

Only one event put a damper on the raiders' spirits. Upon their arrival on Wórdo, Ainyáh received news that his son was sick.  To his allies' utter astonishment, the message stopped him in his tracks.  "I put my men in your hands, Odushéyu," he told the former island king, after announcing his imminent departure.  "My Tróyans and Kanaqániyans alike will follow you to Mízriya.  But I must go back to Wilúsiya to see about my son.  Antánor cannot be trusted, alone in charge there.  He is always plotting against me.  My whole family is still in Tróya and this message may actually be a code that means they are all in danger.  I have been away too long as it is.  Go to Mízriya or Libúwa or even west to the ítalo land, my friends.  May the gods go with you.  Just give me your word that you will stay away from the cities of my people.  Do not touch the eastern side of Alásiya or any city of Kanaqán."

Odushéyu solemnly accepted the command of Ainyáh's troops, declaring himself deeply touched.  His deep-set eyes even filled with tears as he spoke.  Without hesitation, he gave his oath, swearing by the guardian spirit of his hearth and even by the river of death, that he would not harm the dwelling places of Ainyáh’s kinsmen, sealing it with the blood of a dove.  Satisfied, Ainyáh sailed back toward the north in the morning.

Once the Kanaqániyan was well on his way, Odushéyu held a quiet meeting with Idómeneyu, Mirurí and Tushrátta.  "Now that Ainyáh is gone, we can sail east.  Our Lúkiyan allies should be happy to sink a few ships from Kizzuwátna, I am sure, after suffering from their interference, in the past.  Then, we will take on Kizzuwátna's ally, sacking a few towns in Alásiya."

"I like that," Idómeneyu agreed, enthusiastic for the first time in over a year.  "We will take by force the grain that those greedy islanders would not sell at a reasonable price!  Just think, my friends.  Alásiya must be fabulously rich by now, with starving kings from all around the Inner Sea trading there for imported, Mízriyan wheat."

Tushrátta and Mirurí laughed eagerly, exulting at the idea, with shining eyes.  "An excellent way to begin!" the Lúkiyan exclaimed.  "Between its copper mines and its merchants, Alásiya has always presented a most tempting target.  Until now, we were too busy with the Ak'áyans in the west and Náshiya in the east to take on its fleet.  A few Lúkiyans set up households in Alásiya's main cities, hoping to rise up and replace its king with one of their own, one day.  My people have lived there in restricted quarters for generations.  But the time was never right.  My heart swells at the thought of Alásiya's wealth.  By Tarqún, I will even volunteer to keep Ainyáh's men occupied on the one side of the island, while you attack the other."

            "Afterward, we will sail on to the eastern shore of the Great Green Sea and the cities of Kanaqán!" Mirurí cried.  "Let us begin immediately.  I know that as soon as you taste the wealth of a Mízriyan vassal town, there, you will be drawn to those of his master."