Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (31 page)

Ak'illéyu stood at the foot of the Tróyan hill and watched as, all around him, P'ilístas as well as Zeugelátes drifted back toward the river, not long after noon.  "Where are you going?" the T'eshalíyan shouted angrily.  "The sun is still high.  It is a long time till night!  Come back and fight beside me, you women!  You are cowards, all of you!"

Limping painfully, Diwoméde glared back over his shoulder at the northern prince.  "He can do nothing in moderation," the Argive qasiléyu complained.  "When we needed his spear, he would not fight.  Now he cannot get enough, even though the battle is hopeless.  We cannot even reach anyone with our spears or swords.  What is the point in continuing?  Ai gar, Agamémnon should send him home and put Aíwaks in charge of the T'eshalíyans."

Idómeneyu agreed, leaning on his broken spear shaft.  "Why does Tróya's prince Paqúr not shoot him?  I have been tempted to put an arrow in him, myself, more than once."

As if he heard, Tróya's foremost prince stood on top of the massive southern tower of his citadel, glaring at the feathered warrior, far below.  He pulled back the string of his bow of ibex horn and let the barb fly.  Ak'illéyu did not see the dart coming, as he shouted to the retreating sons of Diwiyána.  The arrow found his flesh and he crumpled on the ground with a cry of agony, gripping his leg.

The lawagétas on the field turned back to protect their champion, although more than one groaned to do it.  "Préswa take him!" Idómeneyu spat.  But he dutifully drew his own bow and shot two arrows, one after the other, up toward the now-exulting Tróyans.  Aíwaks was the first to reach the wounded T'eshalíyan.  A small band of feather-capped men followed, with their shields raised protectively.  The big qasiléyu lifted the screaming prince on his broad shoulders to bear him back to the tents.  Blood spilled over the tall man's chest and Ak'illéyu washed Aíwaks's back with vomit before he passed out.

Idómeneyu watched in distaste.  To Diwoméde, the Kep'túriyan observed dryly, "No matter how fierce and brave they are to start with, they all cry like women when they are wounded.  Do you think the war god, Arét, himself would make such a noise?"

Diwoméde frowned.  "It is easy to mock another man's pain, Idómeneyu, when you are not hurt.  My foot is still giving me pain.  I cannot sleep at night until I have emptied a poppy flask.  Ak'illéyu's wound is worse than mine.  Paqúr's arrow struck deep.  The barbs will tear a much larger hole when the arrow is pulled out, too.  He may not be able to walk for a long time.  Préswa might even take him."

"Ai gar, I feel no sympathy for that P'ilísta," Idómeneyu growled.  "He shows no sense at all.  The battle had ended.  What was he trying to do?  Standing in the middle of a battlefield, he was shouting insults at us, mind you, at us, not the enemy.  Ai, he did not even hold his shield up.  It is almost as though he were asking some Tróyan to send him to join Patróklo!"

The Argive nodded grimly.  "You are right.  He was tempting the gods.  But he is not the only one.  Meneláwo took an arrow in the hip in that first battle, you remember.  The wound will not heal.  It drips and smells foul.  But he will not let Mak'áwon help him.  Everyone else goes to the surgeon, but not him.  Now, he spends less and less time in the company of his men.  Every night, when the others are sleeping, he sits on that hillock, looking toward Tróya, sipping poppy wine and brooding.  I do not understand it.  I know he lost his wife.  But no woman can be worth that much."

"Ai, you are still young," sighed the Kep'túriyan wánaks, as the men approached the banks of the Sqámandro River.  "It is not the woman his mind is dwelling on.  It is Meneláwo's areté that is at stake.  A pirate like Odushéyu could accept the loss of his wife easily enough and just go back home.  Men expect little more than a brief show of force from a petty king like that.  But for a true warrior it is no simple matter to give up a quest of honor, especially when the eyes of all Ak'áyans are upon him.  It is particularly difficult for Meneláwo because his brother is the most powerful man in Ak’áiwiya.  It makes him more visible than he would ordinarily be."

Stepping painfully into the boat that would carry the wounded across the river, Diwoméde shook his head.  "I do not believe that is it.  How can Meneláwo retrieve any honor from this situation?  Even if he regains Ariyádna, he cannot believe she will still be his wife, after all this time.  Another man has bedded her for months.  Ai, it has been a whole year since she was abducted.  She may well have given Paqúr a child by now.  By birth she may be 'Elléniyan, but in her heart she must now be a Tróyan."

Grunting with the effort to pole the little craft across the waters, Idómeneyu agreed.  "The best that Meneláwo can do at this point is to avenge himself by sacking the fortress and regaining his possessions.  Then he will have to kill his wife for committing adultery.  I can see no other solution for him.  Otherwise, for the rest of his life, people will whisper about his adulterous 'Elléniya of Tróya."

aaa

In the sunlit courtyard of the Tróyan palace, Ariyádna spun flax into thread, her dark head hanging on one side, her shadowed eyes empty.  Sitting amid chunks of plaster that been shaken from the walls, she whispered to herself from time to time, dreaming of a little girl with a spinning top.  Kluména stolidly turned her spindle whorl at the wánasha's side, ignoring her mistress, just as she ignored the sounds of men fighting and dying that rose over the courtyard.  Alongside the foreign queen and her serving woman sat the widowed Andrómak'e, her eyes as lifeless as theirs, dutifully spinning, listlessly drawing out the pale, flaxen thread.

"Look at them," the young princess Piyaséma whispered from the doorway leading to the dark interior of the palace.  "They look like the three faces of lady Dáwan, spinning the threads of fate."  She shuddered and pointed her thumb, index finger and small finger toward the silent trio.

Beside her, Kréyusa trembled as well and repeated the gesture to turn back the blighting power of the Evil Eye.  "Come away, little sister," she sighed.  "In such evil times, we must not fall prey to evil thoughts like these.  Let us go down to the sanctuary to pray, instead.  We should take the golden scarabs that the Mízriyan commander gave us.  Let us offer those to the goddess.  We may yet soften her heart toward Wilúsiya."

aaa

The women of the Ak'áyan encampment followed their endless routine with as little enthusiasm as the 'Elléniyan queen and the royal Tróyan widow showed for their spinning.  While the warriors fought, their captives toiled under the same merciless sun.  No longer fearing that the camp would be overrun, the women waded into the shallow waters of the Sqámandro River to wash their laundry, and to bear water-filled jars back to the hearth fires, where they would pass most of the day grinding barley into meal.

"Are you going to mock me, 'Ékamede?" Wíp'iya bitterly asked one of her younger companions.  "I have changed hands yet again.  Why are you not gloating?"

'Ékamede glowered from behind a tangled web of black hair.  Bruises darkened her arms and her jaw was swollen.  "What would be the point?" she asked unhappily.  "Mother Dáwan may have given you an evil fate, but she has treated me no better.  I do not know which one is worse, Antílok'o or his father.  They never go out to battle together anymore, but one stays in the camp each time.  I never have any peace.  I must run here and there, all day, every day.  When they think I am too slow, they beat me in front of their men, to show what brave and strong warriors they are!"  She sniffed and wiped a tear from her scratched cheek.  With a little more spirit, she added, "But I still say you were wrong to pray for Patróklo's safety, Wíp'iya.  That was disloyal."

"Was I truly wrong?" the older woman asked testily.  "At least Patróklo was not cruel.  This Aíwaks is a swine of a man!  But I have learned my lesson.  May Mother Dáwan do as she will.  I have made no more clay images of household snakes.  I will not pray for any man's house again.  'Iqodámeya, we should have listened to you and tried to escape in the beginning.  We nearly got away that day when Qántili almost burned the tents.  If only we had gone sooner…"

"…we would have been dragged back to the camp just the same," 'Ékamede angrily interrupted.  "And even if Tróya had opened her gates to us, that day, by now we would be starving.  Our bodies would be turning black from hunger.  We have been over all this before."

'Iqodámeya broke in.  "And what has become of your desire for revenge, 'Ékamede?  I see that you still have the knife I stole for you.  But when will you use it?  And how?"

The younger woman's eyes darted toward the largest tent, the one in the center of the encampment, which was Agamémnon's dwelling.  "I am still thinking about that," she whispered.  "Do not ask any more questions."

Her companions looked at each other, suddenly filled with suspicion and curiosity.  But as they considered what to say, the warriors began to appear from across the river.  The women hurried back to the huts and tents of their masters, wet cloths in their arms.

'Iqodámeya's clean linens were soon put to use, washing the blood from Ak'illéyu's wound.  Aíwaks and the captive woman held the prince down while Automédon pulled the arrow free and stopped the bleeding with the glowing end of a branch from the campfire.  The T'eshalíyan charioteer cringed at the frantic screams of the prince, during the process.  Sweating with anxiety, Automédon groaned, "He will take his spear to me for this, I am sure of it."

"Bring wine and poppies to ease his pain," Aíwaks told the T'eshalíyan of lesser rank.  "It will help him forget, too.  And I will get Qálki to pray to the gods for his recovery.  Where is the seer?  I have not seen him for several days."  Both men soon left the small hut to seek remedies for the northern leader.

Alone with the wounded man, 'Iqodámeya wrapped his injured leg in linen with trembling hands.  "Should I pray to Dáwan for healing?" she whispered, knowing he would not hear over his own groans.  "Or should I pray for your death?  Owái, Ak'illéyu, which would you prefer?"

The prince writhed on his pallet of sheepskins, tears dripping from his half closed eyes, his body glistening with sweat.  "Patróklo," he moaned, "where are you?  I need you, Patróklo, I need you."

aaa

Late in the day, as weary men staggered back to the tents with their burdens of corpses and of firewood, Odushéyu crept to the shabbily repaired walls of Tróya.  Following Agamémnon's orders, Diwoméde went after the It'ákan, trying not to let himself be seen.  Following at a distance, the qasiléyu limped over the rolling hills, taking cover beneath the big oak tree that stood, leafless, below the citadel walls.

Beneath the city's main gate Odushéyu bellowed for entrance.  "Let me in, Tróyans!  You are my brothers.  I have escaped from the Ak'áyans.  Help me.  Save me!  Let me in!"

Suspicious guards opened the double doors, their spears at the ready.  They inspected the welts and bloody stripes on Odushéyu's shoulders, questioning him about his origin.

"I am from K'rusé's island," he whined, bowing deeply to each man.  "I am a captive, mistreated and overworked by the Ak'áyans.  I am eager to fight for the Tróyan cause."  He avoided looking the guards directly in the eye, glancing up at their chins only, as if he really were inferior in rank, keeping his head low.