Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (7 page)

But the command did nothing to placate the younger rower. “What do you mean by ‘we’? You never take a turn at an oar, Peirít’owo. It is all very well for you to tell us to row, row, row until we collapse, but…”

“
Idé
, I steer this ship day and night,” the helmsman protested, hot and indignant. “We really would be going in circles, just as you pretended a moment ago, if inexperienced, ignorant, ox-headed men such as you took the steering oar!”

The bickering continued above Diwoméde. More of the crew soon joined the argument, starting new disputes and adding new dimensions to the old one. This man did not row properly. That one took more than his share of the drinking water. Another was sure that he was too ill to continue his shift at the oar, while his companion accused him of faking it to get easier duties. Only the tall, graying man from Kanaqán took no side and remained silent. Whether his crewmen were plying their oars, or whether they rested as the wind filled the single, square sail overhead, Ainyáh’s attention remained on the sea and the sky above. Uttering only the most perfunctory commands, he concentrated on what lay ahead of them, seeking the signs that would tell him that land was near.

Little by little, the other members of the crew left off their interminable arguing and turned their own eyes to the north as well. Objects floating in the waves, sighted beside the longboat, were pointed out by one man to another, along with changes in the color of the water, and of the sky at the horizon. The flight of water birds overhead — of gulls and herons, cranes and still smaller birds – was scrutinized with special interest. The weary men now began debating furiously over the interpretation of each of these signs. Land was near – or it was half a day’s travel yet – or another day and a half. Not one sailor thought of the prisoner below. At long last, Kep’túr’s craggy outline appeared on the horizon. Only then was the men’s anger forgotten, along with their fatigue. Still, they made more noise than ever, calling to each other to furl the sail of rough linen, to push their oars more forcefully against the powerful waves, to fasten any loose oar in place with its leather strap.

Diwoméde worked steadily through it all. The rising dust was choking him. His body ran with sweat. But the captive felt himself gaining strength as the opening at the top of the sacks widened. He was able to push two sacks out of his way, once they were partially empty. Where there had been room only for an arm, at first, now he could just squeeze his head and shoulders through. Now, if only the crew would anchor the ship close to shore and leave him unguarded for a short while, perhaps….

Feet appeared right in front of his face, the toes grinding into the spilled grain, as one of the crewmen suddenly hopped down into the hull. Diwoméde flung himself back against the wooden wall of his little prison, lying still and hoping against hope that no one would notice anything amiss. No one did. The crewman’s thought were on the shore, not on his feet. Others came after the first one, bringing three stone anchors up from the hull to fling overboard. From the shouts of the men, Diwoméde could tell that small boats were coming toward them from the shore. Soon, very soon, the ship’s crew began to dive into the water around the longboat, one by one, so anxious were they to be on land again.

But Ainyáh’s voice raged over the tumult of cries and splashing, “Get back here, you two! Unload this barley! Take six bags only, do you hear? Six bags and not one more!”

Diwoméde instantly grew stiff and cold with fear. They could not help but see the spilled grain now. He shrank back as far as he could against the sloping wooden hull, trying to think of a god to pray to. But what could he offer to buy the favor of a deity? He owned nothing, was nothing. “
Ai
, lady Diwiyána,” he whispered in desperation, “remember your mountain sanctuary at holy Put’ó. I helped bring your priestess there, when the power of your oracle was declining. I beg you, do not forget.”

But he did not go on, stung to silence by a chilling thought. The priestess who was now the voice of the great goddess was the oldest daughter of the deceased Great King of Ak’áiwiya, Agamémnon. She was Diwoméde’s half-sister. That illustrious lady should have been sacrificed to the goddess of wild creatures, as an unmarried girl, before Agamémnon had sailed to Tróya, long years before. But Agamémnon had tricked the whole Ak’áyan army into believing that his daughter had died while he substituted a doe’s heart for hers. It had satisfied the warriors. But the deities could not have been fooled. The gods knew that the girl had survived. What good was it to have the merciful Diwiyána on his side if Artémito’s wild heart was against him? Diwoméde could only close his fevered eyes and hold his breath, not daring either to pray or to hope.

Ainyáh’s voice was closer now. “By Astárt and the Lord of the City!” he bellowed in fury. “There is barley spilled everywhere! Those miserable Mízriyan rats! They weave finer linen garments than any other people in the world but cannot make a decent grain sack!”

“
Ai gar
, never mind that,” Peirít’owo called down from above, in his higher, lighter voice, brimming with impatience. “We can have the men gather it up, later. What about our one-legged pigeon, our
peristerá
? Do we deliver him here?”

Diwoméde raised his head, fearing that the remark referred to himself. To his horror, he found he was staring Ainyáh in the face. The Kanaqániyan reached over the flattened sacks and gripped Diwoméde’s wrist with a hand that as unyielding as new bronze. The slave yelped, as much with surprise as fear, and tried to pull away. But Ainyáh was a good deal stronger, having been well fed throughout the past weeks – not to mention the past few years. With only a little effort, the Kanaqániyan hauled his human cargo over the torn grain sacks and into the light. Peirít’owo’s hands reached down from the stern platform, too. Resistance was obviously fruitless, and escape out of the question. Diwoméde was soon crouching on the half-deck at the stern, blinking in the bright light, shivering with fear despite the warmth of the day.

But the hands of his captors did not release him even then. He was quickly shoved overboard. The shock of the cool water made him gasp, and when he floundered to the surface, he was choking. More rough hands caught him, dragging him over the side of a small boat to grovel in a pool of vomited sea water and half-chewed barley.

“I will take him up to the village,” Diwoméde heard Peirít’owo call up toward the ship, “while you see that the grain is delivered. The men are yours and will listen better if you are the one giving commands.”

Ainyáh clambered down from his ship into the boat, rocking it. That set off Diwoméde’s troubled stomach anew. A rower cursed as the foul liquid splashed over his feet. The oarsman grasped the back of Diwoméde’s neck and leaned him over the edge of the boat to finish heaving into the water. “No, Peirít’owo,” Ainyáh insisted, in a cold voice. “I will deal with this
peristerá
myself. Askán will oversee the grain distribution. You must stay with the ship and keep your thieving countrymen out of my stores of trade goods.”

“I would hardly call the ox-drivers my countrymen,” the younger Kep’túriyan groused, but he obediently returned to the ship, climbing up one of the anchor-ropes until he could hoist himself over the side.

His insides quiescent for the moment, Diwoméde curled up in the bottom of the boat. His head was swimming and he was too weak and sick to move. Around him, bare-skinned, sun-bronzed men pressed their oars into service. They laughed and sang as they rowed, happy now that they were so close to land. Ainyáh, alone, remained as grim as before. He stepped out of the boat as soon as it approached the rocky shore and pulled Diwoméde after him. The slave flailed his arms and legs frantically at first, not realizing that he was in shallow water. The explosion of laughter from the others in the boat brought him to his senses, as did the coolness of the water on his skin. He did not resist when Anyáh hauled him to his feet.

“Come on,” the Kanaqániyan ordered gruffly. He gestured toward the village by the shore, a small collection of flat-roofed, white-washed houses.

Diwoméde obeyed, stumbling in his efforts to keep pace with the other man. As they drew closer to the dwellings, Diwoméde could see that most had been abandoned. Many of the timbered roofs had fallen in. The walls of plastered planks were cracked, most of the doors gone. Even the mangy dogs that usually prowled among such houses of low-born men were not to be seen. Past the empty houses, the Kanaqániyan mercenary led his prisoner, marching steadily up a low rise. They continued into a grove of sickly trees, all of them drooping in the rising heat. The place looked worse than the village he had left on the opposite shore of the sun-baked sea. The men soon left the remains of the village behind. In the harsh temperature of midday, no birds sang. Even the incessant droning of cicadas was faint. A sudden, sharp sound in the dry underbrush by their feet made both men start, fearing snakebite. Ainyáh had maintained his grip on the younger man’s forearm until then. But, at the sound, Ainyáh released the slave and reached for the long, curved knife that was hanging in the scabbard at his side.

Without thinking, Diwoméde took advantage of the momentary distraction and leaped away from his captor, into the trees. The vegetation was brown and dry from the summer’s deadly heat, and the slave’s skin was soon scratched and torn with every step he took. Limping and stumbling because of his battered foot, he rushed on blindly, caring nothing about the minor scrapes. Sometimes he moved on two feet, sometimes on all fours, gasping as he exerted all his meager strength to get away from Ainyáh. With a furious shout, the Kanaqániyan sprang after the escaped prisoner, cursing and striking out angrily at the twigs and brush that slowed his pursuit. Dressed in only a faded, blue kilt and time-worn sandals, he had little more protection than did the naked slave.

Diwoméde came upon a small clearing and hurtled into it, heedless of where he was going. He tripped over a stone and fell, sprawling, face down in the yellowed grass. Before him stood a child, a little girl about two years old. She was naked, with sun-darkened skin and an unruly crop of dark curls on her small head. She opened her eyes wide at the sight of the naked man leaping out at her. All around the big, black pupils, the whites of her eyes showed, so bright they almost seemed to cast their own light. Diwoméde saw that the irises of those eyes staring into his were the color of the sun-bleached sky overhead. These were pale eyes such as the
maináds
had, those goddesses whose home was said to be in the trees or streams or sacred wells. The slave opened his mouth to cry out in terror and found he could not. To be seen by a
mainád
could strike a man dumb, he recalled hearing as a small boy. All power of speech would be blasted away by these daughters of the sky god, these descendants of the great Díwo, and the power of his Evil Eye. Overwhelmed with horror, Diwoméde completely forgot his human pursuer.

When the second man burst into the parched meadow, the child toppled over. She plopped down onto her bottom, put both hands to her mouth, and let out a high-pitched cry that made the surrounding trees echo. Then she took a breath and held it for what seemed to be a great age to the startled men. For such a long moment did she go without breath, a normal human would surely have turned blue and collapsed into unconsciousness. Ainyáh, who was as taken aback as Diwoméde by the sight of the pale eyes of the small
mainád
, threw his arms out wide and took several steps backward. The Kanaqániyan gripped his knife more tightly than ever with his right hand, holding it out in front of himself in case the little
dáimon
approached. With his left hand, he made the gesture that turned back the baleful power of the Evil Eye. Pressing his middle and ring fingers to his palm, he pointed his outstretched index and small fingers at the diminutive goddess.

The girl’s voice suddenly returned as she finally let out her breath. With a shriek that surely reverberated all the way to ‘Aidé, where Préswa, queen of the dead, reigned for nine months of the year, the little child began to sob and scream alternately. She gulped in more air, off and on, copious tears streaming from her eyes, mucus pouring from her nose and over her rosy lips, dripping from her chin. Saliva pooled and spilled from her down-turned, wide-opened mouth, bubbling around eight perfect teeth that were as white as the milk that
maináds
love before all other offerings.

Ainyáh stood with his back against a tree, as if mesmerized by the baby. He dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Diwoméde shuddered from head to toe at the sound of the little girl’s bawling, trying to regain his footing. All that came to his mind was getting away before the rest of the female divinities came down upon him. Voices rang through the surrounding grove. Diwoméde caught a glimpse of bare breasts and a woman’s hands that hurled rocks, twigs, and clumps of earth in his direction. He cowered behind his arms, ducking his head, and tripped a second time. One of his knees struck a rock embedded in the stony earth and he found his voice, uttering an inarticulate, unplanned cry. Suddenly a spear thrust out of the underbrush. It was only a wooden thing, a sharpened stick hardened in a fire, but it was a spear just the same. Diwoméde scrambled backward, rolling in brambles as he instinctively avoided the weapon, his feet kicking at the air.