Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (9 page)

T’érsite hushed him with a wave. “Dáuniya always claimed that the
maináds
were carrying off her own healthy children and leaving sickly changelings in their place. So, when I told her that I found this one alone, among the trees, she was sure that it was really one of hers, formerly carted off by the tree goddesses. It is not even the right age. But what does that matter? It made her happy.”

The Kanaqániyan rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the woman. “The only light eyed infants I have seen were born of T’rákiyan mothers, not goddesses,” he scoffed. Even so, he kept his voice as quiet as T’érsite’s. “Still, it is nothing to me what a woman chooses to believe.”

“Diwoméde?” asked an emaciated, kilted man who had come to squat behind them. “Did I hear you say the name of Diwoméde?”

“St’énelo,
owlé
to you!” T’érsite greeted the thin man, calling out in his full voice. “Have some flat cakes. Ainyáh brought some Mízriyan barley just this morning.” When the other hesitated, with his hollow eyes fixed on the former slave – still busily wolfing down his own flatbread – T’érsite rose and brought the food to his friend on a rough, wooden platter. “Eat, St’énelo. You are as skinny as a blade of grass, these days. Yes, that is Diwoméde, come back to us from Mízriya. Ainyáh brought him along with the supplies.”

St’énelo shivered, ignoring the food. With an unsteady hand, he made the sign of the Evil Eye. “What have you done, T’érsite?” he whispered, aghast. “That is no living man. What
dáimon
have you brought among us?”

There were murmurs from others gathered there. Only Ainyáh and his son took from the platter of bread. T’érsite stood up straight, looking around at the disheveled band, and shook his head. “You are talking nonsense, St’énelo. Look with your own eyes. That is Diwoméde. You of all people must remember him. You were his charioteer in the Tróyan war!”

St’énelo stood and backed away, now thrusting both of his hands toward the ravenous former slave. “Yes, I was his driver. I know it is Diwoméde. I recognize him all right. But, I am telling you, T’érsite, that man died! Word came to us in ‘Elléniya, last year.
Owái
, T’érsite, you have brought a walking corpse among us. We are all doomed!”

“Ak’áyans!” Ainyah muttered, throwing down the last bite of his barley cake in disgust. “Such ridiculous superstitions! Since when does a shade eat bread?”

“Not ghosts, no, I am talking about the corpse itself, reanimated,” St’énelo explained, his voice growing louder and higher in pitch, as the full horror of the situation struck him. “Diwoméde fell among the southern barbarians, across the sea. His body was never given a proper burial, so his spirit could not leave for ‘Aidé at the time. Now, that corpse has sought us out to avenge its miserable fate!”

All around them, people raised one arm to their foreheads and to the sky, in pious salutes. They fell to their knees, calling, “Lady Diwiyána, save us from your daughter’s curse!”

Dáuniya looked around at the actions of these friends, surprised, puckering her brows. “What is wrong with everybody?” she demanded. Beside her, Diwoméde glanced briefly at the kneeling crowd and back at the woman. He hunched his shoulders, uncomfortable beneath the unfriendly eyes. But he continued eating, swallowing the bread and fish sauce as quickly as he could, too hungry to think about what was going on.

“By all the gods!” T’érsite swore, half laughing and putting his beefy hands on his hips, “Diwoméde is no revenant. He is as lively as I am. Just look at him.”

“He may be drinking water now,” St’énelo said, shaking all over, his voice squeaking with terror,” but when darkness falls, it will be our blood that he drinks!”

The others began to agree in a chorus of wails. All of their eyes turned to the west, where the sky was brightly colored with the last rays of the sun’s departing disk. “That is a corpse on your threshold, T’érsite!” a woman cried. “Look at him yourself. He is as black as the cinders in your hearth!”

“
Idé!”
T’érsite snorted, unmoved. “Black he is. But that is dirt. He was rolling in it when I found him.” He spat in the palm of his hand and walked to his former
qasiléyu’s
side. The slave scooted closer to Dáuniya, glancing up uneasily at the big Argive. T’érsite placed his damp palm against Diwoméde’s cheek and rubbed vigorously. Then he stood back with a wide, empty grin. “There, you see? He is two shades lighter already. If it will make you feel better, Dáuniya and I will take him down to the shore and give him a bath in the morning.”

The young woman nodded. The child in her arms released the breast that had been in her little mouth and pointed at Diwoméde’s half-washed cheek. “Dirty face,” she announced solemnly, then leaned back and returned to her suckling. T’érsite threw back his head and roared with laughter. Dáuniya and the young Askán giggled, too, and even the usually grim Ainyáh smiled. Most of the others, still on their hands and knees, began to feel foolish, seeing the pale spot on the slave’s cheek. They stood with cautious chuckles and uncertain glances at one another.

St’énelo began to feel quite embarrassed. “All right,” he groused, repeating his magical gesture with more steady hands, just to make sure. “It is Diwoméde. He is alive. But he is still a danger to us. I heard that he had died in Mízriya. We all did.”

“We did not all believe it,” Dáuniya replied with a tone of reproach.

“But we all heard that he was dead,” the skeletal man repeated, his sparse, gray beard quivering indignantly. “That means that the goddess of ‘Aidé has a claim on him. We cannot afford to offend the lady Préswa, especially now. Things are bad enough as it is.”

“Very well then,” T’érsite said, speaking with unnecessary gentleness, as if to a small child, mocking his old friend’s fear. “I will carry him around my hearth three times, as if he were my own newborn babe, and I will give him a new name, and call him my son. Will
that
make you feel better?”

The white-haired woman who had spoken before pushed her way to the front of the small crowd. “That might be enough to confuse the evil spirits that bring disease,” she said, shaking a scolding finger at T’érsite, “but Préswa herself is not so easily turned. She wants this man’s blood.” Her face and voice were grim as she pointed to Diwoméde. “Only a blood sacrifice will sate the
wánasha
of the dead.”

“No!” Dáuniya cried, setting the blue-eyed child on the ground. The woman rose to her feet hurriedly and took a stand between Diwoméde and the gathered people. With an air of authority, she announced, “The thread of Diwoméde’s life has not been cut. If it had, if the weaver goddess had wanted his life, he would not be here now.” She glared furiously at St’énelo and at the older woman who had spoken so threateningly.

To the former slave’s utter astonishment, all eyes fell at that. They were still uneasy, he could tell. He could see it in their shuffling feet, in the anxious hands that could not be still, in the eyebrows gathered close over darting eyes. But no one dared to argue with his concubine. The faces, the voices, all were familiar to him. He was on Ak’áyan soil once more, free again, among his own countrymen. But everything and everyone was, at the same time, completely foreign. He, once a troop leader and a man of the second highest rank in the society that had once existed, was utterly without status here, a step away from death, it seemed. At the same time, this woman who had been merely his share of the spoils of war, his property, now spoke with all the confidence of a
wánasha
, of a ruling queen. A great deal had evidently changed since he had sailed away from Ak’áiwiya four years before.

Diwoméde was confused and did not know whether he should be afraid of these people or whether he should laugh off the whole thing. Was there really a place for him in this new time? Was he really dead, in some sense, he began to wonder? Nothing in his former life, either as a
qasiléyu
or as a slave, had prepared him for this moment. He found himself unable to swallow another bite. Wrapping his arms around his chest, he closed his eyes, rocking back and forth as he squatted on the ground. “Just leave me alone,” he whispered to no one and to everyone. “Just go away.”

But that was not to be. At T’érsite’s directives, the ceremony of a child’s naming promptly began. Or rather, Diwoméde observed, the normally solemn rite was mimicked. His “uncle” T’érsite made no effort to conceal his opinion that the whole thing was absurd, although he went through every motion and said every line, as was done for each newborn child. The burly Argive had St’énelo build up the fire within the circle of stones, until a thick column of smoke rose before his ramshackle hut. T’érsite then had Dáuniya go inside with the women, where the men could not see her. Untying the strip of leather that held up his tattered kilt, he urged the others to do the same, saying, “Loosen every knot. Let down your hair. Stand with your legs wide apart and your arms wide, too. We do not want to retard the poor mother’s labor.”

Some smiled at the ridiculous suggestion, since the “mother” was not actually giving birth to the fully grown “son.” Others raised disapproving eyebrows. But they did as T’érsite advised. When all the men were unclothed, the Argive led them in a circuit of the shack, spitting to the right at every third step, shouting up to the god of sky and storm to banish any evil spirits that might be lurking about. “Díwo! Díwo! Díwo!” the men called out behind their leader, following and spitting in his footsteps with good cheer. Three times around the little dwelling the men marched, before noticing that Ainyáh was not among them, but standing to the side with his arms crossed on his chest, frowning with exasperated ill-humor at the proceedings.

T’érsite pulled at his gray, thinning locks and moaned dramatically, “
Ai
, no, no, my friend, you must straighten your arms! The poor, little mother is suffering!” He would not let Ainyáh alone, either, until the Kanaqániyan dropped his calloused hands to his sides.

“Now, all of you must circle the fire,” T’érsite told them, panting slightly. “Pray to all the gods and goddesses, and be sure not to leave out a single one or the poor, little babe will have a sad fate. St’énelo, you must lead the others. You Lakedaimónians are the most religious people in the whole world, so I entrust this vital task to you.” Taking Diwoméde by the elbow, he started back toward the hut, then stopped. Turning again toward the former charioteer, T’érsite admonished him, “Now, do not forget the
maináds
or the
dáimons
, either, St’énelo. We do not want a single immortal to be angry with the poor, little lamb.”

A second time, the balding Argive moved away from the circle of men, but once more he stopped. Waving a finger at the group, he added, “Now, be sure to make the sign of the Evil Eye toward the four corners of the world and toward heaven and the underworld as well. All six directions must be covered. You never know where the evil spirits will try to come from!”

The men began to pray, most of them now grinning broadly. Raising their hands to their hearts, their foreheads, and thence to the sky, they named the divinities in a raucous chorus of shouts and sweeping gestures. “O Diwiyána and Díwo, mother and father of the gods, hear us! Give the child a good fate. Artémito and Apúluno, fill this boy with the vigor of wild things. Arét and At’ána, make him a man of courage and honor…”

Chuckling, T’érsite led Diwoméde around to the back of the hut. He knocked a hole in the far wall of the little building and pushed Diwoméde inside, hollering enthusiastically to the women within, “Is the baby about to be born? Is it nearly here? Are you suffering terribly in there, little Mother?”

“
Owái
, my insides!” Dáuniya cried, in mock distress.

At her feet, her child threw her head back, nearly losing her balance, and echoed,
“Owái!”

“
Owái
, my outside! The baby is almost here! Lift me up, my sisters. The head will appear between my legs at any moment, now.” The women lifted the “mother” and T’érsite directed Diwoméde to crawl beneath her.
“Owái,
here he comes!” Dáuniya called.

Her little girl repeated as loudly as she could,
“Owái!
A come!”

Still dazed, feeling extremely foolish, Diwoméde let the women help him to his feet in front of Dáuniya and guide him to the doorway of the hut. Work-worn hands brushed lightly at his face and shoulders, pretending to clean him of the blood of birth.
“Ai,
what a big baby it is, too!” cooed the elderly woman who had, so recently, objected to his presence. “Yawn for your Auntie Mélisha now. That will be a good sign.”

T’érsite rushed around to meet his former commander. “Is it a girl? Tell me, dear wife, how does our new little niece look? Is she big or small?” The women were beginning to giggle as the clowning man looked the “baby” over.
“Ai,
what a pretty, little girl we have!” he crowed in a high falsetto, chucking his former
qasiléyu
under the chin.

Mélisha gave her husband a light slap on the arm. “Husband, have you no eyes? My mother was right. You have a mind like an ox hoof!”