People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (5 page)

"A priestess!" St'énelo cried, laughing wildly.  "She is a Tróyan!  She serves a Wilúsiyan goddess.  The people of Argo will never accept a foreign captive as their wánasha, certainly not as a replacement for a holy Lakedaimóniyan priestess of their own, native Mother Diwiyána."

Meneláwo threw up his hands.  "St'énelo, you are wasting your breath when you tell me these things.  No, Argo will not accept the loss of Klutaimnéstra.  I agree with you.  And no, the Argives will not allow the foreign priestess, Kashánda, to replace her.  Agamémnon's plan is certain to start a civil war.  And that is exactly why I do not want to be in Argo when my brother comes home.  Even though he is in the wrong, I cannot fight against my own flesh and blood.  But at the same time, I do not care to fight alongside him, opposing my wife's sister and the laws of Diwiyána.

"No, my men, we have no choice.  We must drive ourselves to the limit, stopping only at night to rest, pushing forward from dawn until sunset each day.  We must stop in Argo, at least for a little while.  I must travel to Mukénai to pick up my daughter.  You will have that much time to rest.  But then we go on to Lakedaimón.  We must do this even if it means that only a third survive of those who once sailed for Tróya.  The only alternative is another war, a new campaign before we have had time to recover from the last one.  How many of us would return home then?"

Odushéyu tried one more argument.  "Let us keep to the Assúwan coast and winter in Millewánda.  It is an Ak'áyan city at least."

Still, Meneláwo shook his head.  "Ak'áyan it may be, in language and in rulers.  But Millewánda sided with Tróya in the war.  No, Odushéyu, we cannot stay in Assúwa.  The whole continent is hostile to us."

No man argued any further.  As the Lakedaimóniyan wánaks commanded, all strove with every ounce of his strength to speed the crossing from that time on.  Alternately rowing and sailing toward the southwest, the Ak'áyan travelers spent their third night on the island Téno, where no amount of bronze could buy meat from even the poorest shepherd's flocks.  On their journey, no ship capsized in heaving waves.  No mast was split by lightning.  Still, the number of men who would live to see their homes grew smaller with each passing day.  Wounds blackened and drained foul-smelling liquid as infection took hold.  Writhing with pain, burning with fever, men groaned upon their beds for the last time.  Others collapsed of exhaustion to find no rest, every muscle drawn taut, their backs rigidly arched and their faces locked in the final grimace of tetanus.

Weary of lamenting their kinsmen and friends, the rowers burned each dead man's flesh by night.  Before dawn they sifted through the ashes to gather the bones and packed them in urns already crowded with the burnt remains of those who had died before.  "It is a shame we have come to this," Odushéyu told the lesser-ranked men of Meneláwo's camp, watching yet another pyre burn low on Téno.  "We had to burn the dead from the beginning, following the Tróyan custom and ignoring our own.  That was bad enough.  But there were so many dead during the war, we could not hold a proper funeral for them all.  We held no games, not so much as a foot-race, except for Ak'illéyu and his brother.  Now, no one bothers to sing lamentations for the dead anymore or even to cut our hair."

"Let their families give them proper rites when we get home" St'énelo muttered from his seat near the flames.  "We are tired of funerals."

"Do you think I am not?" Odushéyu asked petulantly, not expecting an answer.  "Owái, this is an evil omen of more hard times ahead.  It calls to my mind the signs before Tróya fell.  Do you remember how your king behaved that last month?"

"He fought, in spite of his wound, just as we all did," St'énelo growled.  "That was no omen."

"Ai, but it was!" Odushéyu answered.  Before continuing, he looked right and left to see that no one was near enough to overhear.  He moved closer to St'énelo and spoke more quietly than before.  "Every night, Meneláwo went to sit on a low hill as soon as darkness fell.  He remained there very late, alone, staring at the city's white walls, constantly polishing his sword."

He nodded at the Lakedaimóniyan with a knowing look.  St'énelo only frowned and looked away, unimpressed.  Nudging the rower with his elbow, Odushéyu went on, "That wound in his side, do you remember when he received it?"

"I remember," St'énelo muttered, tossing twigs into the bright flames.  "How could I forget?"  He turned to look up at the stars, bright pinpoints in a cloudless sky.  "It was after single combat on the first day of battle.  Meneláwo downed the Tróyan champion.  Then the Tróyans broke their oath and fired arrows at us.  One of them struck our king."  Leaning forward, he added forcefully, "But our wánaks insisted on fighting in spite of the wound.  He ignored his pain and all Ak'áyans admired him for it."

"Not all, not the northerners," Odushéyu argued.  "Remember?  The P'ilístas questioned his honor.  They said it was the custom for wounded men to refrain from fighting.  And what is custom but a law given by the mother of us all, the goddess Diwiyána?  Meneláwo mocks the great Lady, they said.  And the gods bring disaster to those who mock them."  Odushéyu pointed his thumb and index and small fingers toward the Lakedaimóniyan king, who lay with the queen in his arms several yards away.  "Mother Diwiyána, protect us from the Evil Eye," the mariner said in a dramatic undertone.

"Custom!" St'énelo spat.  "Those P'ilístas are great ones to talk about custom.  Their own champion fought when he was wounded and they said nothing about Diwiyána's laws then.  I never saw you make the sign of the Evil Eye toward him during the war, either.  No, when Meneláwo fought, all true Ak'áyans admired his courage and persistence."

"Yes, that was so, at least at first.  No one blamed him for drinking from the poppy jugs, either.  Not in the beginning," Odushéyu said ominously, dropping his hands to his lap and glancing at the other out of the corner of his eye.

"Wounded men deserve that solace," St'énelo countered, disturbed by the direction the conversation was taking.  "How else can a man bear it when a spear has pierced his entrails and it takes him days to die?  You cannot blame the wánaks for craving the essence of poppies."

Odushéyu's gaze was somber.  "No, no man blamed him at first.  But as the days dragged on, the wánaks lost weight, his ribs showed more and more.  He ate little, preferring the poppy to all other good things.  Then, even you must have begun to wonder whether the king's mind was still in this world with us.  Perhaps he was dancing with the immortal daughters of Díwo, the wild maináds.   And what was he thinking about, on that mound by the sea each night?"

"Dreaming of his wife's return, no doubt," St'énelo answered, nervously plucking dried leaves from the twigs stacked beside him.  He squirmed under the It'ákan leader's eyes.  "Dreaming of battle glory," he added in a whisper and he glanced back pensively at the sleeping wánaks.

Odushéyu pressed on, his voice heavy with foreboding.  "Or was he planning a dreadful vengeance like his father took years before?"

"Those were just rumors about Atréyu," St'énelo gasped, looking about in sudden fear that they might be overheard.  "You do not believe them, do you?"

Odushéyu leaned close to the other man and whispered, "They say that wánaks Atréyu murdered his own brother's children, to avenge the rape of his wife.  The old king cooked the children and served them to their father…"

"Shut your muzzle, you worthless pirate!" St'énelo cried, leaping to his feet.  "I do not want to hear any more of this."

Meneláwo raised himself on his elbow, Ariyádna whimpering beneath his arm.  "What is it?" the king asked, his voice husky with sleep.

"Nothing, wánaks," St'énelo called from the fireside.  "Odushéyu and I were arguing, that is all."  The It'ákan reached up to pull the other man back to the ground.  Behind them, the king lay down again with a grunt of pain, reassuring Ariyádna with a gentle hand on her hair.  She huddled closer to her husband with a low moan.

St'énelo sat reluctantly, combing his beard with trembling fingers.  "Ai gar, I meant what I said.  I do not want to hear any more of these tales."

But Odushéyu was not finished.  "Is it possible that Meneláwo plans to avenge himself on your queen when he reaches his homeland?  If Agamémnon is plotting against his wife, what about his brother?"  The oarsman was clearly troubled.  Odushéyu spread his hands and shrugged before he went on.  "Your wánasha did sleep with another man, after all.  There is no escaping that fact.  A man cannot be blamed for killing an adulterous wife."

With a sudden shudder, St'énelo dismissed the thought.  "Even if Atréyu and his oldest son are as evil as that, Meneláwo is not.  I do not know what he was thinking on that mound by the encampment.  No man knows.  But if he was thinking to avenge himself on an unfaithful wife, he did not.  He could have slit her throat in Tróya that night, after he killed Dapashánda.  He could have brought her corpse out and no man would have questioned how she died.  But why should he want to do such a thing, anyway?  She was not invited to Wilúsiya, after all.  She was raped.

"No, Meneláwo is loyal to our wánasha and to Lakedaimón, even to the point of going against Agamémnon, against his own brother.  What more could we ask of our king?  And he has no more poppy juglets now.  If he still eats little, it is only because there is no more.  If evil times are ahead, that is the gods' doing, not Meneláwo's."

Odushéyu was not placated.  "Ai, but what of your queen herself, wánasha of Lakedaimón and holy 'Elléniya?  Do you see her?  Her head leans perpetually to one side, and she twists a lock of her hair endlessly, moaning her child's name, whispering about bulls and mysterious lands.  Is this a sign from the gods?"

St'énelo shrugged unhappily.  "What do I know of such things?  I was a charioteer, during the war, and I am a rower now, not a priest.  Ask me a question about horses and I will have an answer.  Perhaps the goddess who gives true sight is speaking to the wánasha.  Diwiyána's seeress at Put'ó talks that way as well."  Groaning, he pressed his work-roughened hands to his head.

Odushéyu whispered, "It is possible that her ravings are prophecies, just as you say.  Or it may be that she, too, has been caught by the maináds." Despairingly the It'ákan mariner shook his head.  "If both your wánaks and wánasha are captives of Díwo's daughters, where can Lakedaimón turn for leadership?"

St'énelo swallowed hard.  "To the wánasha's sister, I suppose," he sighed.  "Klutaimnéstra holds power over Lakedaimón, the land of her birth, as well as her husband's land of Argo, in the absence of the kings."

Odushéyu threw up his hands in dramatic bewilderment.  "But how can she accomplish the salvation of Lakedaimón?  As Meneláwo says, she and Agamémnon are at odds."

"Ai, you are as fearful as a sheep," St'énelo snapped, filled with anxiety himself.  "And you have no more sense than one, in spite of your rank, Odushéyu.  Besides, even if Lakedaimón's legitimate leaders are war-weary, Klutaimnéstra has problems enough of her own.  We cannot look to her for anything."

Odushéyu's eyes gleamed.  "Exactly!  Then perhaps you will admit that all is lost.  Unless…"

"Unless what?"  St'énelo was suddenly suspicious.

"Unless a certain outsider were to take over Lakedaimón, perhaps an island king with a wife who is also of Lakedaimóniyan birth, a wánaks who had the wisdom to keep his impoverished country well supplied with bronze."  His lips curled in a slight and calculating smile.

St'énelo was dumbfounded.  He stared at the It'ákan wánaks with his mouth agape, as if seeing the master mariner for the first time.  Suddenly St'énelo began to laugh, the tension falling from his face and limbs.  With a snort of disgust, he crowed, "You mean yourself, I see!  So that is what all this talk of omens was really about.  You are wasting your time talking to me.  Meneláwo is the rightful wánaks of Lakedaimón, you pirate.  If there is anything to be done to save my country, it is Meneláwo who will do it.  You will just have to stay in your miserable islands.  Now, leave me alone and let me get some sleep, or I will not have the strength to row tomorrow."

No longer welcome, Odushéyu left the fireside, cursing his fate.

aaa

The fourth night saw an improvement in the fortunes of the Lakedaimóniyans and It'ákans.  Leaving Téno, they were unable to row around the rest of the Islands in a Circle, unable to reach Éyuqoya because of unfavorable winds.  It seemed an evil omen to the oarsmen when the next night saw them only on Kéya.  These Kukláde islands had sent no men to fight at Tróya.  Their sea-going confederation owed allegiance to no outside power.  The strength of the island men presented too sharp a contrast to the battered oarsmen for comfort.  But, although the weary rowers of Lakedaimón and It'áka were fearful of attack, the islanders gave them dried fish, as well as barley gruel, and sheltered them from the night's winds.