Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (13 page)

Alakshándu stood, wrapped tightly in his old cloak.  "I see your point, Ak'áyan.  I understand," he responded stiffly.  Without another word, he left the room, leaving the entertainment of the guests to his startled sons.

Odushéyu sat and enjoyed the Tróyan princes' discomfort for awhile, before turning to Aíwaks, who was not having nearly as much fun.  "We really ought to be going," he told the qasiléyu.  "Agamémnon does not like to be kept waiting."  With clenched fists and tight jaws, the Tróyan princes saw the Ak'áyan messengers out the gates of their fortress.

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Alakshándu's royal wife and daughters knelt together by the hearth of the queen's mégaron, wailing and singing lamentations for the many young men who had gone down to Préswa beneath the spears and swords of the Ak'áyans.  "None will be missed more than Qántili," Kréyusa said, putting her arms around her mother's heaving shoulders.

"Yes," the old woman wept, "all our hopes died with him."

Sitting a little apart, Kashánda muttered fragments from ancient epic songs, prophesies of Tróya's doom.

"When they came from steep Wilúsa,

Heroes of the silver age,

Then began the end of time,

Doom of giants, doom of good.

Brothers, twins, they took their spears,

Tower shields, and crowns of gold.

Out upon the plain they strode,

Gaining glory, gaining bronze.

One, the offspring of a god,

Men called 'Éktor, Champion.

Now his twin is slain beside him.

'Éktor only holds the field.

Tróya dies, Wilúsa with her,

On the day that 'Éktor falls…"

Alakshándu stood in the doorway, watching silently for a long time before the mourners noticed him.  Kréyusa at last raised her head, and the king stepped forward.  He sighed once, a heartfelt, hopeless sound.  "I am going to bring Qántili's body back," he announced, to the women's astonishment.

At once, Eqépa clasped his hands over her heart and sobbed, "No, no, do not go, my husband!  Do not leave the city.  That wild man will kill you, too, and I will lose everything, everything!"

But Alakshándu pulled his knobby hands away, no longer bearing himself with the pride of royalty, bent and broken like any of the old men within Tróya's walls.  "I have agreed to a truce with our enemies.  Now I am going to ransom my son," he said quietly.  "For this, I need your help.  I have given away all my gold and tin and most of the bronze in my treasury, buying the services of our allies.  Now bring me every valuable trinket you own, the diadems for your heads, the beads for your necks, the golden badges sewn to your clothes.  We must have enough ransom to melt the Ak'áyans' anger."

Eqépa stood, the breath coming harshly from her lips.  "Melt their anger?" she asked, as if she could not believe what her ears told her.  She began to laugh and her laughter grew louder and louder until she was screaming.  Her soft, plump hands became fists and she pummeled her husband with surprising strength.  "Alakshándu, fight against the mainád who has possessed you.  Ai, husband, you are as mad as Ak'illéyu if you go to the Ak'áyans.  They are ravenous wolves!  They will kill you.  Have you no sense left at all?  They are rabid dogs, those pirates of the Inner Sea!  They have no shame, no pity for anyone.  They care nothing for the laws of Mother Dáwan.  Ak'illéyu is a dáimon spawned by Préswa herself, a lamíya who sucks the blood and life from sleeping children!  Ai, if only I were a man, I would take up my spear, old as I am, and run him through!  Ak'illéyu should be torn apart by lions!  He should be surrounded by wolves and devoured along with his accursed father's sheep!  Ai, if Paqúr could bring me that man's corpse, I would eat his heart, tear it apart with my own teeth!"  Shrieking and keening, she was dragged from the king by her weeping daughters.

Alakshándu stood, hunched over, his eyes to the floor.  He listened to his wife with as little interest as he had often heard lawsuits among the common folk, women quarreling over the possession of a goose, men arguing about the placement of boundary stones between croplands.  "I am going," the king repeated once more.  "If the Ak'áyans have betrayed me with this talk of a truce and I die, well, I am an old man.  I do not care to live and see Tróya in flames."

From their chests of aromatic cedar, the royal ladies brought Alakshándu robes of state, cloaks and rugs woven by captive women, linen and woolen cloth dyed in many colors, diadems of gold and electrum, their last silver cups, and elaborate earrings from the many treasures Alakshándu and his sons had acquired in decade upon decade of war and trade.  Lesser born women, servants in the palace, gathered finely wrought tripods and caldrons, metal utensils that could be melted down for the valuable bronze.  At the main gate, the best of the Tróyan treasures were loaded on a wagon, as the people of Wilúsiya gathered around their aged king.

"Let me go instead, Father," begged Lupákki, one of the younger princes.  "Ak'illéyu knows me.  He sold me into slavery.  It was his own father-in-law who ransomed me.  The gods are clearly with me.  Even the most godless man would not try to harm me a second time."

The other princes agreed.  "I would go myself, if it were not for my arm," Dapashánda said apologetically.  "If I had to defend myself…"

"And I would go," the oldest of the three announced more forcefully, "but someone must be in charge here."  Paqúr gave his father a harsh look.  "There are things to be done in this fortress besides sitting about in sackcloth and ashes, singing the praises of the dead."

In sudden anger, Alakshándu drew himself up and lashed out at his sons.  "You whelps, get out of my sight!  I wish the lot of you were dead instead of Qántili!  By the gods, I have no one left to me but women.  You are fit only to look after my lambs, all of you!"  Falling back at the king's words, they let the old man go.

Only one of the princesses appeared at the gate.  The priestess, Kashánda came, clear-eyed and somber, with wine in a clay cup.  "Here, Father, pour out a little wine before the six holy pillars, before you go.  I will pray to Dáwan and Poseidáon for you.  My sisters and I will burn what offerings we can, at the shrine of twin columns.  Perhaps it will be enough.  It may be that lord Apúluno will grant you a safe return to these gates that he sanctified."

Alakshándu nodded, dispirited now that he given vent to his rage.  He climbed onto the wagon and turned to his driver to find a boy, not yet fully grown, no sign of down yet growing on his chin.  "Child," the king said in surprise, "are you the only driver in Tróya who is not wounded?"

"Yes, my lord," answered the boy, drawing himself up proudly.  "I am twelve years old.  Another year and I will be old enough to take the flocks to the mountain pastures and stay all summer."

Sighing, the aging king nodded and the wagon clattered out of the gate.  The young driver held his donkeys still for the king to make the libation to the six obelisks, as the royal priestess had advised, then they were underway.  As the wagon crossed the parched fields between the citadel and the river, Tróya's princes left the gates for the palace that capped the hill upon which the city perched.  Standing alone, Kashánda put a hand to her heart and raised it to her forehead and the sky in salute to the divine mother.  "Great Dáwan Anna," she whispered, glancing up at the sky.  "Let my father succeed today.  If we must all die, then let it be as you will.  But let my brother's body come back to Tróya.  Let his soul go to 'Aidé alongside ours."

At the Sqámandro's muddy, northern bank, the onagers pulling the wagon paused to drink.  To Alakshándu's weary eyes, the waters seemed unusually low and murky.  "The Ak'áyans are choking off our life's blood," he muttered, "and now Dáwan has chosen to deprive us of our water.  Ai windy Tróya, my Tróya, your only hope is the sea.  Lord Poseidáon, remember the rich offerings I made you in all the many past years.  If ever my gifts pleased you, send our salvation across the Inner Sea."

The boy stood and whistled at the donkeys, flicking the reins.  The animals moved forward, rumbling over the muddied waters of the Sqámandro River.  The water came as high as the animals’ thighs, wetting the feet of the driver and his passenger.  But neither beasts nor men were forced to swim.  T'érsite, guarding the opposite bank, watched them go and offered no resistance.  But when they had passed, he hurried to Agamémnon's tent, to bring the high wánaks the news.

Others in the camp pointed the way to Ak'illéyu's hut, where the old man struggled to climb down from the cart.  Leaving the boy to hold the team outside, Alakshándu entered the T'eshalíyan prince's hut, finding him reclining on filthy sheepskins as 'Iqodámeya cleared away the half-eaten remains of the morning meal.  The T'eshalíyan and his woman looked up at the old man's entrance.  'Iqodámeya inclined her head and touched her hand to her forehead to show her respect.  But the Ak'áyan did not recognize the king.

Alakshándu fell at the prince's feet.  The old man clutched the warrior's dirty hands and kissed them.  "I am Alakshándu, king of the land of Wilúsiya.  If you worship the gods, take the ransom I have brought in my wagon.  In exchange, give me the body of my son."

Ak'illéyu pulled his hands free, looking at 'Iqodámeya in angry astonishment.  The prince said nothing.

The Tróyan wánaks continued his pleading, "You have a father.  Is he as old as I am?  Is he not alone now, with no one to defend his old age, with war and ruin facing his cities?  How alike he and I must be!  Ai, he must ache with longing for news of you, hoping to see you once more before he dies."

Ak'illéyu stirred uneasily.  He turned his face away, frowning.  Watching him, 'Iqodámeya put her hand to her mouth, trying to warn the king against more speech of this kind.

But Alakshándu went on recklessly, "People tell me I still have many sons.  But I would not complain if Préswa took each one, now.  The best of them all was Qántili and you killed him, fighting for my land.  I have come to buy his body in exchange for all the riches I possess.  Be merciful, I beg you.  Let me ransom my child."

Ak'illéyu rose, backing away from the old man.  'Iqodámeya touched the prince's arm and whispered, "Think of the gods, Ak'illéyu, and think of your brother's troubled soul."

Embracing his enemy's knees, Alakshándu raised a hand toward Ak'illéyu's beard.  "I kissed the very hand that killed my boy.  Take pity on me, the most miserable of men, because I have brought myself to do what no other man would consider."

"For the gods," the captive woman murmured.  "For the sake of Patróklo's soul, show pity."

Ak'illéyu's forehead furrowed with pain.  "All right," the T'eshalíyan wánaks moaned.  "I do not like this.  But it must be the gods' will.  I will grant your request.  Now sit and drink a cup of wine with me.  It is the custom."