Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (15 page)

Only snakes dwelt in the palace now, feeding on the ever-present mice and rats. Diwoméde glimpsed their narrow bodies through open doorways. He felt more than heard their quiet whispers, telling secrets that only a prophet could understand. He recalled how, as a child, he had seen his mother setting out bowls of milk for the serpents in their home. Immortals who needed only to shed their skins to renew their youth, snakes were the living portion of the deceased ancestors, his mother had told him. She had meant to comfort him with those words, encouraging him to believe that his deceased grandfather was guarding their home. Now, however, his spirit quailed at the thought that all those souls which had met violent deaths were still roaming the citadel on the peak of the hill. What malevolence they must hold in those cold hearts! His skin prickled and he found that his hand carrying the basket of offerings was shaking.

Years ago, King Meneláwo had found his small daughter hiding in a large jar, high on that hill, surrounded by mangled corpses. No wonder ‘Ermiyóna had never wanted to come back to this accursed place! It seemed very likely that the ‘Elléniyan queen’s shade, too, lingered here. Queen Ariyádna had been forcibly torn from her home and family, on this hill. Here, her only child had hidden in a storage jar, trembling silently through a long night of terror until Meneláwo had found her. It had been a year before the child was again reunited with her parents. Even then, both mother and father had been forever changed by the experience. Diwoméde could easily believe that the shades of the royal couple hovered close by. He could feel the weight of their melancholy pressing down on his shoulders as he neared the center of the fortress.

When she had left this island as a child, ‘Ermiyóna had carried in her heart an unassuaged fear that she, too, would one day be carried off across the sea by pitiless warriors. Diwoméde remembered how he and Orésta had stormed another fortress, one in northern Ak’áiwiya, in the land of T’eshalíya, to return a full grown ‘Ermiyóna to safety in Lakedaimón. But, unable to let her know their purpose ahead of time, they had entered her chambers to find her preparing to hang herself. She had been standing on a wooden table, the cord around her neck, her eyes as wide as small platters. How great that young woman’s dread had been of following in her mother’s footsteps!

A sudden movement seen out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Stopping in his tracks, Diwoméde held his breath and looked around. Instantly alert, he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand erect. But he could see no one. Nor did he hear anything but the faint moaning of the wind and the distant murmur of the sea. “It is best for me to make the offering quickly and leave this place,” he told himself, trying to calm his pounding heart. Attuned to his surroundings now, his gloomy memories temporarily banished, he limped the rest of the way to the main courtyard of the palace. There stood Diwiyána’s altar of stone and plaster, two of the four horns nearly weathered completely away by the sun and wind, the other two painted a foul gray by bird droppings. Uncertainly, he laid his basket on the cracked paving stones of the courtyard floor, just in front of the sacred object. He took up a bit of the barley and sprinkled it over the chipped horns that still rose from the southern and eastern corners of the altar.

“Diwiyána,” he began. But he could not think how to pray. The goddess had surely abandoned this island and its common people. Even if she were still present, he was sure that she would not listen to him.
“Wánasha,”
he started anew with the grander title. But he could not go on. What if Ainyáh was right? Was it blasphemy to pray in the name of a woman of blood and flesh?

“That is a pretty poor excuse for a sacrifice,” said a mocking voice behind him.

CHAPTER FIVE

AK’AIWIYA

Startled, Diwoméde spun around and almost fell at the sight of a naked man, balding and bearded, the white hairs copious on his broad, squat body. “Odushéyu!” the younger man cried, fury suddenly bubbling upward in his soul. “You sided with Mízriya in the last war and sold out your own countrymen!”

The other man fell backward, crying out, “Lady At’ána, save me!”

Diwoméde threw himself on the other, pummeling him with long-suppressed rage. “Traitor!” the
qasiléyu
shouted, “I will kill you with my bare hands!”

Under the former slave’s fists, Odushéyu howled and wailed, repeating his plea to his goddess, along with curses and entreaties addressed to Diwoméde himself.
“Ai,
no, no, it was not my fault! Préswa take you, Diwoméde!
Owái
, goddess, help! It was all Ainyáh’s idea, I swear to you. Ainyáh forced me to betray you. At’ána pótniya, where are you? Do not let me die in this accursed place! Get off me, you dog! Are you mad, Diwoméde? I am your kinsman! To ‘Aidé with you!” He flailed with his hands and managed to cast a handful of loose dirt in his attacker’s face. Scrambling away on all fours, he continued his alternate pleading and cursing, as Diwoméde sprawled helplessly, trying to clear his burning eyes.

When the younger man could see again, Odushéyu had a brick of sun-baked clay in each hand, taken from the many that lay scattered about the ruined courtyard of the old palace. Spitting dirt, the former
qasiléyu
reached for a stone.
“Ai
, no, do not do that!” Odushéyu wailed, drawing back his right arm to throw his brick. “I do not want to fight you, my brother.”

“Brother!” Diwoméde spat, indignant, his hand still hovering over the debris in the courtyard. “You are no kin to me, you pirate, you mangy cur, you worthless sack of vinegar! You led our fleet to destruction, across the sea! No Ak’áyan alive or dead will claim kinship to you now.”

“No, no, that was not my doing, not mine,” the older man wept, tears falling from his dark eyes. His body wracked with sobs, he knelt before Diwoméde, raising his brick-laden hand toward the
qasiléyu’s
chin, pleading. “It was Ainyáh, only him. Please believe me. You must. He made me do it, I swear by the very head of Díwo. Ainyáh had my son, my only child in the hold of his ship. He would have killed the boy, slit his throat as if he were nothing but a sacrificial lamb, if I had refused to help. I had to do it. I had to!
Owái
, I am the most unfortunate of all men! Even At’ána has failed me!”

Diwoméde shoved both the hand and the brick away from his face and stepped backward. With his hands on his hips, he spat once more. “Diwiyána must truly despise me. She is forever putting you in my path.” His offering and the altar forgotten, he turned to leave the abandoned palace.

“No! No, wait!” Odushéyu called after him in despair. With his brick still in hand, the white-haired man rose and trotted quickly after Diwoméde. Still sobbing unashamedly, he begged, “Do not leave me here.
Owái
, the gods have more than punished me for any evil I may have done.
Idé
, I have suffered as no other man ever has! My wife – may Préswa take her! – my own queen has banished me from my kingdom, from the land of my birth.
Owái
, this is the second time, too! Can you believe it? And after I saved her son’s life, at that! I can hardly comprehend it myself, such an enormous crime it is! Who would ever have foreseen that such a calamity could befall me twice? Why, I had just arrived home and the very sun hid his face from me,
owái
, the moon arose in midday and overtook the sun! It was an incredible thing to see, I took it for a good omen, but how wrong I was!
Ai
, and my son, my dear, dear child,” he continued, scurrying around in front of Diwoméde, stumbling backward as the former
qasiléyu
maintained his limping pace.

“Yes, Diwoméde, even my son has listened to his mother’s lies about me and cursed my very name!
Ai
, such a dreadful fate, such a pitiful destiny! After I saved the boy’s life, he turned against me, his own father! He goes about proclaiming his intention to kill me himself, if I should set foot on holy It’áka!
Ai
, your great heart cannot help but be moved by this sorrowful tale, I am sure of it. I know you, Diwoméde. You were always a magnificent hero, even as a green youth. You must pity me, an old, broken man, and take me with you.
Owái
, if only you had been my bastard instead of Agamémnon’s, what a difference…”

Diwoméde sprang at the aging exile and barely missed the older man’s throat. Odushéyu swung reflexively and struck at the
qasiléyu’s
outstretched arm with the brick. The hardened clay cracked the younger man hard on the old wound at his shoulder. As Diwoméde backed away, cursing at the pain, words continued to pour from the former mariner’s lips. “Pity me,” the old pirate wept, dancing with anxiety. “You were a good and just commander when you were a
qasiléyu
. What a great fighter you were, too! Yes, you were always a fine soldier!
Idé
, I remember well my first sight of you in action, beneath Tróya’s ill-fated walls, across the Inner Sea to the east. A truly wondrous deed you did there, yes truly! You felled the best warrior on the field with a single thrust of your spear, as I recall. Yes, the Lúkiyan king had held the rest of us at bay, but you…”

The former slave clasped his bruised arm to his side and continued his march down the hillside, trying to skirt the other man.
“Ai
, you old fool, it was Patróklo who killed the Lúkiyan king,” he snapped.

“
Owái!”
Odushéyu wailed, pressing the brick to his forehead. It left a pale imprint of dust on his sweaty flesh. “Yes, of course, how could I forget? I am getting old too early in life, bowed down by endless misfortunes! It was the Míran king you killed, of course, and you drove his white horses into battle the next morning. I remember it now as clearly as if it were yesterday!”

Diwoméde halted in his tracks and faced the dancing exile. “I killed a T’rákiyan chieftain, you stupid sheep! He was a northern barbarian, not a proper king at all. Now stop that bawling.
Ai gar
, you sound like an old woman!”

Odusheyu sniffed loudly, wiping his dripping nose with the back of one hand. “It is coming back to me, now,” he said, clearing his throat and deepening his voice. “T’rákiyan, of course. My sorrows have stolen my wits and made me foolish.
Ai
, but now, what is important is that you are Diwoméde, the commanding officer. That much I certainly do remember. I did not recognize you at first, back there in the courtyard, naked and shaven, as if you had no rank at all, you see…”

That stung, for Diwoméde felt that he had no more rank than he had clothing. It occurred to him that he was indebted to Ainyáh for the one thing that he did possess, his freedom. The thought galled him. He cursed and spat, trying to remove the bitter taste from his mouth.

“No doubt my own wretched appearance misled you, too,” Odushéyu continued, becoming quite cheerful. He dropped his brick, grinning broadly and baring toothless gums. In so doing, he bore a remarkable resemblance to old T’érsite. “It was Ainyáh himself who kicked my teeth in, you know. A vicious weasel of a man, that one is. My only joy in life is that I will never again have to look upon his ugly face.
Ai
, what a misshapen hawk’s beak of a nose he has! It pains the eye just to look at it. What a terrible liar he is, too! Those men of Kanaqán are the worst in the world in two things, sailing ships and speaking the truth!”

Obviously, the aging exile did not know that Ainyáh was waiting at the shore. Diwoméde glanced at the old pirate’s craggy features, imagining the consternation that would appear there in a few moments. The thought came close to amusing the former
qasiléyu
.

Misreading the softening that occurred in the younger man’s expression, Odushéyu threw his burly arms wide, preparing to embrace his companion.
“Ai
, my brother,” he sighed happily.

Diwoméde shoved him away brusquely. “You may not be my enemy. But you are no kinsman of mine, either, and certainly not a friend. What are you doing here, anyway? King Orésta will not be pleased to hear that you are on his land. No matter what you say, you had a hand in his uncle’s death.”

Odushéyu shrugged. Gesturing with his filthy hand, he noted, “Orésta will never know that I was here. People are mostly fools, I have found. It never occurs to them that a man may be other than what he appears. I appear to be a beggar at the moment, so no one has recognized me as the king of It’áka in all my travels, not since I escaped from Ainyáh’s clutches. It is quite unbelievable, do you not think, especially considering my reputation, both as a mariner and a great archer?”

“
Ai
, no one knew you but your wife, you mean” Diwoméde scowled, his voice cold. “You just said that she banished you a second time.”

“
Ai, ai, ai
, yes,” the older man groaned, shrugging again. “She knew me well enough. May At’ána
pótniya
strike her blind! But that is quite enough of these sad tidings. Your presence here is good news. How did you get out of Mízriya? Did you fight your way free, or did you manage to purchase your freedom?”