Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (4 page)

Both the heavy-set Libúwan and Bikurnár invited all the gods of Mízriya to shower evils on this apparently demented slave. Others, watching, roared with laughter at his unreasonable fear of the small blade. A crowd quickly gathered and, with it, half a dozen spearmen. The colorful bands draping their shoulders proclaimed their rank and prowess as much as the slender javelins that they carried. Bikurnár welcomed these tattooed men and urged them to help him subdue the captive.

Still howling and struggling, Diwoméde was pinned to the ground, a man on each limb, the merchant sitting on his chest. Diwoméde could hardly breathe, but still he strained against the restraining hands. Mirurí was at last able to shave the dark hair from the slave’s arms and legs, although his hands were unsteady after all the uproar. He nicked his subject several times, drawing a little blood and great deal of noise each time.

It was only when the job was done and the pressure eased on his arms and legs that Diwoméde finally understood that he had been in no real danger. Trembling violently, he sat up, drawing his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his head. His breath came in gulps as he fought the urge to cry. He might as well have been a little boy, afraid of having his head shaved, he thought, showing such terror of nothing but a razor. But he was no coward. He was a true warrior. He had fought in the great Tróyan campaign, he told himself. His dagger had slit the throat of a chieftain from the far north; his spear had sent many brave men down the river Stuks to the underworld. But the laughter of the Libúwans stung, shattering those memories of glory and honor from long ago. How could he have come to this?

Mirurí breathlessly added a few more curses and several blows of his wooden rod about the bowed shoulders of the slave. But Bikurnár soon stopped him. “Come now, just get the tunic on him. How can I sell him if you beat him to death? Look there, the sun is nearly halfway to his peak. We are wasting time.
Ayá
, I should have sold half of my stock by now!”

Diwoméde put up no struggle over the tunic, welcoming the time that it gave him to steady his knees. He did not want to be shaking when he was sold. “Lady Diwiyána,” he whispered, “let me go to a rich landowner with many cattle. I will offer you libations of milk every day. But spare me from the eyes of men and this shame.”

However, Bikurnár was in no hurry to dispose of this odd, difficult slave. He haggled endlessly with his customers over the sale of each of the others in line before Diwoméde. Extolling the skills of his various captives, he cajoled and wheedled, threatened and cursed, until all of his other human wares were gone. Finally, when the sun was straight overhead, and the market place empty for the midday nap, the Káushan prodded Diwoméde to his feet at last. “Now, this one is a rare find,” the dark man called out, dragging Diwoméde up on the dais.

Judging by the sound of the slave-merchant’s voice, Diwoméde assumed that there must be several potential buyers still about. But he kept his head down and his dark eyes lowered, gripping the wrist of his bad arm with his other hand. He hated this moment, the bitterness of defeat again in his mouth. It made him feel vulnerable and helpless. He did not even dare press his middle and ring finger to his palm, stretching out his index and small fingers, in the gesture that would turn back the Evil Eye. He knew that hostile eyes would be on him, but lacked the spirit to protect himself. The only thing he could do was shudder, feeling cold despite the heat of the day, and mouthed a silent prayer, “Help me, Diwiyána. Protect me, goddess.”

“He is a singer of tales,” Bikurnár was saying, his voice betraying a little anxiety. Perhaps the buyers were leaving, uninterested in what they saw. Diwoméde did not know whether to be pleased at the thought or not.

Mirurí trotted heavily to Diwoméde’s side. “If you do not believe him, see for yourselves. Here, sing one of those stories about ships,” he commanded, with a light slap on the slave’s arm. “Give us the one about Túla, or whatever it was.” He shoved a cracked
lúra
into Diwoméde’s hands.

It was an old instrument, one of its seven strings missing, besides sporting a large crack in the sound-box. It must have belonged to Bikurnár, Diwoméde thought, cautiously plucking the strings of dried gut. The sound was not good. One string played a bit too high, another a little too low. The lowest buzzed instead of vibrating clearly. His hand went to the end of the strings, where they were wound about the short, wooden tuning pegs.

“Never mind that!” the beefy Libúwan snapped, his natural impatience tinged with desperation. “Just sing!”

Potential buyers were surely losing interest. Diwoméde began to feel uneasy. He did not want to wait there in the slave-merchant’s pavilion for several days, to be paraded before countless pitiless stares. If there was anything worse than being sold, it was being offered for sale and not taken. He began to sing in a voice that was neither strong nor particularly melodious:

“When they came from golden Mukénai,

Young ‘Erakléwe was twelve years old.

The hero tied feathers on his head,

On his chest a lion skin.

His chariot wheels are painted red.

His enemies’ blood is spilled in streams,

His beardless face soon painted black

In the city’s smoke and dust.

A sacker of cities at twelve years old,

‘Éra’s glory, son of the gods.”

The words caught in his throat and he stopped abruptly. To his immense relief, neither the Libúwan nor the Káushan objected. This was another thing he would rather leave behind when he went to a new master, entertaining foreigners with the traditional songs of his homeland. It gave him no pleasure to sing of the legendary ‘Erakléwe and his abduction of a Tróyan princess. That had been the Ak’áyan victory song in war for as long as he could remember. But the Ak’áyans had suffered nothing but defeat in recent years. It was not fitting that southern barbarians should hear of these past glories over a midday snack of dates and beer.

Memories of the Tróyan war in which he had fought, himself, made it just that much worse. To sing of the brave deeds of his countrymen made him ache with regret, knowing that most of the men he had fought with were now either dead or captives like himself in Mízriya. No, he would not miss telling Náfriti, over and over again, how a northern prince had quarreled with the overlord of the Ak’áyans over a captive woman. The young Libúwan woman had never tired of hearing how Ak’illéyu’s love for his concubine had overcome his oath of allegiance and his warlike ideals. At least, that was how the girl saw it. Diwoméde did not think that the quarrel had been about love. “It was about power and status,” he had insisted, reminding her, “I should know. I was the one at Tróya, not you.”

But Náfriti insisted on her own interpretation. She did not care to hear about the Ak’áyan code of honor, about
aréte
, or the intrigues of the various kings. Diwoméde had to sing the tale her way, or she would have him beaten. Sometimes he had refused her demands, preferring Mirurí’s rod to the inner pain of his memories. It galled Diwoméde to think how Náfriti adored the memory of that dead, northern warrior whom she had never met. Ak’illéyu had been a traitor to the cause of his fellow Ak’áyans, in Diwoméde’s mind. By staying out of the major battles, he had indirectly helped their enemies. Diwoméde was not the only Ak’áyan who held that opinion, either. But these sentiments did not influence Náfriti’s judgment. Spitefully, he had once told the girl that the northern prince had never loved a woman at all, but preferred good-looking boys, an outright lie.

“Ak’illéyu caught a young Tróyan,” Diwoméde had shouted angrily. “He carried the boy off and raped him as if he were a girl.”

Náfriti had only scoffed and demanded the song of ‘Erakléwe again. Could she tell that he was lying about Ak’illéyu? There had really been such a boy and it had been a northern Ak’áyan who had lusted after him. But it had been the army’s surgeon, not Ak’illéyu who had desired the youth. It had been that same physician who had sold Dáuniya to Diwoméde, trading her for the bronze that he valued more than the young woman.
Ai
, Dáuniya again! How he ached to see her smile once again, to feel her warm arms around his neck, to smell her dark hair! He would make offerings to any god to make that happen…

CHAPTER TWO

KEP’TUR

Diwoméde’s thoughts were interrupted again, this time by the unmistakable accent of a man from Kanaqán. Though he could not place it immediately, the voice was strangely familiar. Without lifting his head, he looked up only with his eyes, hoping to go unnoticed. Diwoméde’s jaw dropped in surprise and horror. Indeed, he knew this man, instantly recognizing that lined and leathery face with the great beak of a nose, the long, gray curls on that head and chin. “Ainyáh!” Diwoméde whispered to himself, and nearly choked on the name of the man who had led the Ak’áyan ships into a Mízriyan trap four years earlier.

“Even in Kanaqán, a singer is a valuable addition to the household of a high-ranking official,” Bikurnár was saying hopefully, squinting in the brightness of the midday sun. “Or so I have heard.”

Ainyáh made no attempt to hide his disgust at the sight of the slave. “Save your lies for the next customer, Káushan. I am buying on another’s behalf, not my own,” he told the tall merchant, looking the captive up and down. “This wine-sack is obviously only half a man, from the look of the foot alone. You would not try to sell him in clothing unless you were trying to hide some defect, and do not pretend to be offended by my saying so! That squawking he did may pass for a song here in Libúwa, but not in Kanaqán. I tell you, my people would have no interest in this worthless scrap of dried leather. No, no, do not say anything. I will buy him, but only because I have been charged to do so. Now, let us settle on a reasonable price. I will not give you any bronze. He is not worth it. I will not give you any cattle or horses, either. I have two jars of wine and, to show my generosity, I will throw in six poppy jugs. That is my offer. Take it or leave it.”

Bikurnár groaned extravagantly, gripping his head as if the Kanaqániyan had beaten him with a stout club. “
Ayá
, if I accept so little, my reputation will be ruined! I appeal to you as a fellow merchant, Red Man. You could at least add a goat to the payment, or a few geese.”

“I have no time for this,” Ainyáh snapped. He looked up at the bright, pale sky. “It is late and it is hot. My price is already more than he is worth.”

“Take it, take,” Mirurí urged in a loud whisper. “The
maas
will have me beaten if I do not return before his nap.”

“This will destroy me,” the merchant wailed, but the cry was half-hearted due to the heat. “The slave is worth much more than that!” Sweat dripped from his brow and chin. “
Ayá
, the sun is too hot for any more arguing. I accept your offer.”

Diwoméde’s heart sank and he let the
lúra
drop from his hands. He hardly noticed when Bikurnár cursed and struck him in response. Even death from starvation and overwork in Mízriya’s copper mines seemed preferable to enslavement in the household of his personal enemy! The gods must truly despise him, he decided. As Mirurí applied his limber rod to the slave’s back, driving him toward his new master’s ship, Diwoméde almost welcomed the physical pain. At least it was a distraction from his acute mental anguish.

Ainyáh, no more pleased to have Diwoméde than the slave was to be possessed, quickly stripped his new captive of his tunic and put him to work. The man of Kanaqán had a small boat drawn up on the shore, a vessel made from bundles of reeds tied together, without a mast. He set Diwoméde to unloading its meager cargo of ceramic jars. Some were large, bulbous, and reeking of rancid oil. Most were much smaller and shaped like the head of a dried poppy. From them came a sickly sweet odor that the slave found oddly intoxicating. He would have given anything in that moment to be able to open one of those small jars and down the viscous, black liquid that he knew was inside, for therein lay forgetfulness. Mirurí, sweating profusely, stood in the sun to supervise, shouting and gesticulating with his staff in an effort to speed the work. But the slave made a less than satisfactory bearer, especially when he carried the largest jar of oil, as Bikurnár apologetically admitted. Diwoméde’s pace was uneven, and, with his stiff arm he was unable to lift the bigger jars to his shoulders without assistance from one of Ainyáh’s crewmen. Mirurí was nearly dancing with impatience before all of the Kanaqániyan’s goods lay on the sand of the beach.

The slender slave-merchant pulled off his short, black wig and joined Ainyáh in the shade of his pavilion to watch. “When I started in this business, a captive brought in half his weight in copper,” Bikurnár sighed. “I had more cattle than I could count. But Mízriya’s army took so many prisoners in that last war with the sea people that I can hardly meet my daily expenses anymore. Slaves are so cheap now, even the able-bodied ones bring in little more than bad wine. You see what I am reduced to,” he lamented, gesturing toward the limping slave. “I am merely unloading other men’s defective goods for a small commission.” He gestured listlessly toward the wide-mouthed jar at his side.