Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (31 page)

“
Idé,”
Mélisha moaned. “Many a man has chosen that wicked
dáimon
. The number who have done that cannot even be counted!”

Darkness deepened and the men dozed in their corner of Andrómak’e’s chamber. Mélisha, too, nodded off into a light sleep. In the privacy of the quiet night, Dáuniya asked the miserable queen, “Does Érinu not treat you well, then? When Ainyáh told us that you and Érinu were married and free, I actually envied you.”

Andrómak’e sniffed away her tears, which continued to flow, unabated.
“A
i, Kareshátta, how hard it has been for you! I cannot imagine how you survived it, all these years. What must you think of me? When I married prince Qántili and came to Tróya to live, I thought nothing of keeping you and the other serving-women busy, far into the night. My mother always told me that it was a wife’s duty to do that. If I did not keep the lot of you busy, she told me, my husband would be irresistibly drawn to the beds of other women. But now that I have known captivity myself, I understand that the problem lay with the man, not his slave women. I wish I could go back, change things, and treat you kindly.”

Dáuniya gave her a sad smile. “The wish will have to be consolation enough.” She said no more for a moment, gazing at the weary face in silence. How the former princess had aged, since they had last seen one another! “Whether a woman is a captive concubine or a high-born queen, her husband does not care to keep another man’s child in his house,” she remarked, at last. “Can Érinu be all that different from other men? Does he love his brother’s children as his own?”

Lowering her eyes, Andrómak’e admitted, “There is tension here, even in our household. My younger children are Érinu’s, of course, and he knows it. That much is a blessing. I was afraid that he would reproach me for lying with the T’eshalíyan prince while we were still slaves. But he has not mentioned that since we came here to live. I can thank the goddess for that mercy, at least. To our son and daughter, he is a good and loving father, when he chooses to be, I should say. He has accepted his nephews, the sons of Paqúr, into the household, too, as his brotherly duty to their deceased father. That is a good deed. Idálu has always been easily led, by his older brothers when he was little, and by Érinu these last few years, since the older boys went away. But my beloved Qántili’s only son brings me nothing but heartache.”

She wiped tears from her cheek, as they came thick and fast, whispering, “Poor Sqamándriyo! He knows the story of Tróya’s fall all too well. I have told him the story of his brave father’s death often enough. But he was just a baby when it happened. It is just a story to him. The only father he knew was the T’eshalíyan king who adopted him and raised him – an Ak’áyan! All the Tróyan boys grew to love the king and called him ‘grandfather.’ For most of their lives, they saw Érinu as a mere slave in the king’s stables. Sqamándriyo just cannot seem to accept his uncle as a substitute father, now.
Owái
, I am afraid that my son will leave home as soon as he is old enough, he is so unhappy now. I know that he will go far away, before long, and I will never see him again. Then it will be as if I have lost my dear Qántili a second time!” She covered her pale face with her hands to hide her renewed weeping.

“Ainyáh told me that your nephew, Kurawátta, was in Kanaqán,” Dáuniya said, laying a sympathetic hand on Andrómak’e’s heaving shoulder. “That is where your Sqamándriyo would go, is it not? But, if he and Érinu do not get along with one another, perhaps that would be for the best. At least he would have a kinsman there.” She glanced back at her toddler, sleeping easily in her husband’s arms, in the far corner of the room. “Of course, I can understand how that would be hard for you. A mother naturally prefers to keep her children close by.”

“
Owái,”
Andrómak’e lamented,
“owái, owái!”
she repeated again and again, mourning so deeply that she woke Diwoméde from his slumber. “It seems that I must spend the whole of my life in a lonely, fruitless battle with this grim Lady
Areté
! She devours everyone that I hold dear, one by one. My parents, my brothers, my dear husband Qántili – each one is gone despite my prayers, despite my offerings, despite promises to me and to the gods. At one time, I feared that I would never see Sqamándriyo grow to be a man. I suffered so much during my captivity, and it was all for his sake.
Ai
, Kareshátta, I had no idea now difficult it would be! It was not the hard work that I minded. It was the constant fear and worry for my son. The old king of T’eshalíya and his queen grew to love Paqúr’s little boys and my Sqamándriyo, too, as if the boys were their own grandchildren. But their true grandson, that terrible prince Púrwo,
owái
, he was a wild and fierce warrior without so much as a finger’s length of pity in his heart! I lived in constant terror that he would one day kill my little Sqamándriyo in a fit of temper, for no reason, no reason at all,
owái, owái
!”

“That is one fear that I have never had to face,” Dáuniya admitted gratefully, with another backward look at Diwoméde. The
qasiléyu
felt her gaze on him, but he kept his eyes closed and remained still, forcing his breathing to remain slow and regular, so that she would not know that he was awake and listening to the conversation. His heart pounded harshly and he feared that she could hear it.

The queen again tried to calm herself, wiping away her tears with the fleeces on her bed and sniffling. “I am glad to hear it.
Owái
, that Púrwo, he was a
dáimon
in mortal form! He humiliated me in every way that he could imagine. Sometimes he beat me, or forced me to lick his feet clean after he had been in the stables. He insisted that I sit at his feet while he ate and he wiped his greasy hands on my hair. Almost every evening, he drank great quantities of wine, repeating horrible stories of the atrocities that he and other Ak’áyans had committed in the Tróyan war. His every word to me was either an insult or a rebuke. If I had not had Sqámandriyo to care for, I would have hanged myself rather than endure it! Any death would have been preferable to that life! But how could I leave my poor son an orphan with such a man preparing to take the throne? Érinu and I could only steal a moment of pleasure together, now and then. I depended on Érinu’s courage and strength, back then, to keep me going.

“And then I became pregnant with Érinu’s child. The only thing I could do, to hide my condition, was lie with Púrwo, so that the new baby would have a royal protector. If the prince had known that the baby was Érinu’s, he would surely have killed us, me, Érinu, the baby, and Sqamándriyo, too. I know this as certainly as I know that the sun will rise at dawn. Érinu wanted me to refuse Púrwo after the first time. But how could I? He could force me all too easily. Even the king and queen believed that it was a serving women’s duty to do everything that her lord required. That prince was a monster! He made me lie with him in the positions that animals take.
Ai
, then he delighted in frightening me, threatening the children in his drunken rages.”

“But then he married Meneláwo’s daughter. He left you alone after that, did he not?” Dáuniya asked, wishing that she could change the subject.

Andrómak’e tossed her head from side to side, moaning. “No, no! I thought that he would. I did not know then whether to celebrate or mourn. You know that Meneláwo was the very king whose wife was the cause of the Tróyan war. Fear had been with me all along, but then I knew what real terror was. O how terrified I was! When ‘Ermiyóna arrived, it was worse than ever! She hated me right from the beginning, as if I were the one who had carried off her mother, and not my foolish brother-in-law. When she conceived immediately after the wedding, I hoped and prayed that her mind would turn from me to more pleasant thoughts. But her baby came much too soon and died at birth. She blamed this disaster on me, accusing me of witchcraft!
Owái
, she even tricked her father into promising to kill both Sqamándriyo and me!

“But, then, when I was sure that all hope was lost, Meneláwo spared us. I will never understand why. Perhaps it was fate. Only Mother Dodóna knows such things. What is still more unbelievable, before the next phase of the moon ended, the king of T’eshalíya was on his way to the land of ‘Aidé and Érinu and I were free. Not only did the T’eshalíyan queen release us from captivity, as she lay there on her husband’s deathbed, but she married us to one another and sent us here, over the mountains, to rule Párpara.” She began to laugh, a high and weak laughter, utterly devoid of joy.

Glancing around at the sleepers in the flickering light, Dáuniya tried to hush the hysterical sick woman. “Hush, now, Andrómak’e, or you will wake the others.”

But the queen did not stop. The words bubbled up and spilled from her lips in a ceaseless torrent. “I have held these things in my heart for too long, Kareshátta. You cannot know how hard it has been, with no one to share my thoughts with, no one I could talk to, these long, terrible years. When queen T’éti freed Érinu and me and sent us here, I thought it was a wonderful gift from Mother Dodóna herself. It seemed then that my sufferings were over and Sqamándriyo would achieve manhood, after all.
Owái
, I should have known that he and Érinu would not live together in peace! It could not be that easy!
Ai
, now Sqamándriyo wants me to abandon my younger children and my husband, to return to Tróya. He does not really care for that barren land any more than I do. He just wants to be far from his uncle. Érinu is just as impossible, in his own way. He is constantly urging me to send my son away! How can they be so blind? Why do they go on this way? How can I choose between them? Can they not see that I would rather slit my own throat than part with either one?” She wailed more loudly than ever, gripping her damp hair in both her hands and pulling with all her meager strength, as if she wished to tear it from her scalp. Clearly, the battle between her second husband and the son of her first husband was tearing her soul in two.

Dáuniya knew nothing to do but pat her hands, trying to soothe her. But the sick woman’s voice only grew ever louder and her words continued to come still faster as she went on and on. “I bought my children’s survival at the price of my own! Nothing is dearer to me than any one of my babies. I cannot put one ahead of another, not if it means my life itself. I certainly would not place
areté
before the well-being of Sqamándriyo, or of his little brother, or of their sister! But that is not a crime. That is Mother Dodóna’s most basic law. No woman should be asked to do such a thing!”

“But, Andrómak’e,” Dáuniya said, trying to calm the queen, taking her hands, pulling them from the damp hair, “Érinu is a priest. Reason with him on that basis. He owes at least as much allegiance to the mother goddess as to the code of honor.”

But the sick woman only shook her disheveled locks more violently, tangling the sweat-soaked hair further. “No, no, you do not understand. You do not know him as I do. At one time, I thought I could make peace between Érinu and Sqamándriyo. I tried reason, I tried tears, I tried begging, pleading, I tried everything! But the situation only grows more difficult with every passing season! It will not be long now before Sqamándriyo is old enough to take matters into his own hands.
Owái
, the very thought raises goose bumps on all my flesh!
Ai
, Kareshátta,” she wailed, grasping Dáuniya’s warm hands with her icy fingers, “I am doomed to lose this battle just like the others. There is no weapon that can pierce
Areté’s
armor! What kind of
dáimon
is this wicked goddess? Is there nothing that can kill her?”

Diwoméde trembled at the passion in the queen’s speech, as he crouched in the corner of the room. At least his wife had been spared the anguish that Andrómak’e suffered, he told himself. He had never forced her into his bed. Nor had he purposely shamed his concubine or threatened her or any of their infants with harm.

To his horror, Dáuniya asked wistfully, in response, “Are not all women in that same contest with honor, losing war after war?” She squeezed the queen’s shuddering hands in her own hands, speaking quietly, soothingly to the distraught woman. “I remember, my mother talked about the same thing, when I was very young. She was a seeress in the Bull Country. She was called Karména. Perhaps you heard Ainyáh speak of her at Tróya.”

Andrómak’e shook her head, weeping still, no longer making the slightest effort to catch the ever-falling tears. But her sobs began to subside as the younger woman talked on, quietly. The effect of Dáuniya’s voice was quite the opposite on Diwoméde. He felt as though he had been showered with scalding water. He had only now begun to recognize Dáuniya as his wife, not merely a concubine. But how could she share this foreign queen’s despairing view of the world – and of men? Was he truly the cause of similar anguish in the Italian woman’s heart? He did not want to believe it could be so. With all his soul he did not want that. But he had not been able to shake the feeling, since he had returned from across the Great Green Sea, that he was, somehow, responsible for a similarly monstrous load of misery in so many hearts, all around the Inner Sea.

“I can hear her voice at night sometimes, when I cannot sleep,” Dáuniya was saying, her voice growing softer, so that Diwoméde could barely hear. “ ‘It is always the menfolk who stalk the paths of the Mother of the Gods,’ she would tell me. ‘It is always a man who delivers the final blow to those whom the goddess wishes to bring low.’ The old ones said that this was because the lady beneath the earth was insatiably greedy for the good things above the earth, the things that she could not have. But, you see, we have an answer for the Death Maiden. That answer comes from our Mother the Morning. That is the custom of my people. Those were the things that my mother told me the day that I was carried away. If only I had been allowed one day more in my homeland, I would have been initiated into the secret rite of women. I would have learned the full secrets of the goddess of the Dawn.”