Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (8 page)

"I do not read well," Idómeneyu answered still more quietly than before.  "But my wife taught me the signs.  I cannot make out the whole message, but I can read several names."  He pointed out a row of painted symbols.  "That is a-re-ka-sa-do- or something like that.  If I am not mistaken, it means Alakshándu."

"Alakshándu," Agamémnon repeated with an impatient wave.  "Is it surprising that Tróya's king would send a message, and have his name signed?"

"Ai, but now this," Idómeneyu indicated another set in the top row of symbols.  "This looks like ku-lu-ta-me-ne- something.  I think it is Klutaimnéstra."

"My wife!  My own infernal wife!" Agamémnon exclaimed, sitting up straight and slapping his thighs with his hands.  "What interest can king Alakshándu have with her?"

"And here," Idómeneyu went on.  "I am sure of this one:  pe-ne-lo-pa."

He did not have to interpret.  Odushéyu clapped a hand to his receding hairline, crying, "Penelópa!  I never would have suspected her, never!  My wife is as timid as a fawn."

Idómeneyu made a face.  "She is not the only surprise here.  I know the syllables me-de-ya, down here.  But I do not read well enough to know whether this is my wife, Médeya, or…"

"Ip'emédeya!" Agamémnon broke in, his voice low now but all the more menacing.  "By the black waters of the river of death, my own child is being used against me!  Ai, if only that wine-sack of a seer had called for the sacrifice of my wife instead of my daughter, at the start of the campaign, I would be a happy man.  Ai gar, there is no greater evil in this world than the thoughts in a woman's heart!  It was Klutaimnéstra who pressed me to organize this expedition.  'I cannot bear to leave my sister in Wilúsiyan captivity,' she said and she wept a wine bowl full of tears.  By the gods, she was the one who sent me that dried up locust of a seer, too!  'He is the best,' she told me.  Préswa take him to 'Aidé!  I ought to rip out Qálki's liver and eat it before his very eyes!  That false prophet is behind this, I will bet you six bronze idols!  He has always worked against me, blaming me for every setback.  Is he the one spreading rumors of unrest at home?  Is he?"

"No, wánaks," Odushéyu answered quickly, stepping back from the bigger man, a little alarmed.  "I heard these things from the Wórdoyan boatmen, as I told you.  These men are merchants, not superstitious shepherds.  They know the nature of the world.  No, Qálki himself has said nothing about you, either good or bad, since the last battle.  He is even talking of leaving Assúwa these days, just as you are.  That ought to please you.  He cannot read the omens here, he says, and he must go back to the sanctuary at Put'ó.  In fact, the Qoyotíyans are out in the harbor right now, checking their ships, getting one ready to take him."

"Ai, he wants to cross the sea to return to Ak'áiwiya, does he?" the overlord roared, his face red with fury.  "Why?  So he can stir up trouble for me at home?  He is going nowhere.  No man leaves this camp unless I give him permission, or he is food for crows!  T'ráki and Wórdo may get away with a token punishment.  But not that blood-sucking seer!"

Idómeneyu cleared his throat to get the other men's attention.  "It may be of interest to you both that I can make out one more name here."  He pointed to the symbols on the broken ceramic, three signs separated from the rest by vertical lines.  "Qa-li-ki," the Kep'túriyan recited, touching the symbol for each syllable as he pronounced it, "Qálki.  It is clear that he was to be the recipient of this message.  Our own army seer has been working against us!"

Agamémnon leaped to his feet and paced furiously back and forth.  "The dog!  I knew it.  That worthless bag of sour wine!  Ai, Qálki is nothing but a night-monster, an evil dáimon!  I knew he was against me from the first.  I tried to tell all of you.  Why did everyone listen to him and not to me?  It is all so clear now!  That is why Qálki blamed me for the adverse winds when we first gathered our ships to sail.  Every pirate and merchant knows the winds take their own time and blow as they please.  But Qálki said a great mainád was angry with me, with me by the gods!  It was all calculated to destroy me, just as I suspected.  And the disease among the troops, the god sent that plague, there is that as well on the seer's head.  I told you all it was only bad fish.  But would anyone listen to me, to the most powerful king in Ak'áiwiya?  No, a withered raisin of a prophet said it was my fault and you fell over yourselves trying to please him.

"But now you see!  Qálki was my enemy all along.  That is why he named such a high price for me to regain the favor of the gods.  Ai gar, my daughter, my own Ip'emédeya is dead, because of Qálki's demands."  He gripped his hair, throwing back his head, roaring out his anger and anguish.  "And the whole army sided with him.  You all listened to Qálki and would not let me slit his throat then and there as he deserved.  Every warrior in Ak'áiwiya bears some of the blame for my daughter's death.  Idé, but Qálki's guilt is the greatest of all.  I will have my revenge, too.  I will not forget this.  By the hair on Díwo's head, I swear I will tear him limb from limb and scatter the pieces in the sea!

"And my wife, my own wánasha plotting this with Qálki.  I can hardly believe it.  Klutaimnéstra hates me so badly she sacrificed her own daughter to help the seer destroy me!  Well, she will have her due.  I will see to that, if it is the last thing I do.  When Tróya falls and I return to Argo, Klutaimnéstra will die.  Queen and priestess she may be, but that will not save her from my wrath.  If it means the end of my kingship, if it means I follow her to 'Aidé, so be it!  I will have my revenge.  Ai, Ip'emédeya, little daughter, what have they done to you?"

The other kings tried to calm the overlord, urging him to sit again and to keep his voice low.  But Agamémnon shook them off.  The bigger man was burning with rage and could not keep himself from giving vent to it.  "And Ak'illéyu was part of it, too, was he not?  Ai, yes, I can see it all so clearly now.  It was his spear that kept me from tearing out Qálki's heart with my bare hands, there in Qoyotíya.  Every northerner in the army sided with that half-mad T'eshalíyan, too.  Néstor, also, he shares the blame for Ip'emédeya's suffering.  If that old goat had not spoken on behalf of Qálki, the southern kings would have listened to my brother and to me.  If the south had only united against the north, my daughter would still be in my palace in Argo.  I will never forget this outrage, this atrocity!"

"Agamémnon!" Odushéyu cried, gripping the bigger king's arm.  "Sit down!  Lower your voice before the whole camp is aroused.  Half the men are out foraging or checking on the ships anchored in the harbor.  Even they will hear you, if you keep on shouting!  Do you want to start a civil war among the Ak'áyans right now?"  Idómeneyu repeated the appeals, taking hold of the overlord's bandaged arm and squeezing hard.

The pain returned Agamémnon to awareness.  Still seething, he did as the lesser kings advised.  He sat and spoke more quietly.  But he continued to rave, as inflamed as ever.  "Now we know why Qálki could not find a good omen, for so long," the big man went on, his eyes wild.  "He never really looked for one, did he?  No, his intention the whole time was to pin us here before Tróya, idling away through the whole summer season of war.  No doubt, he would have been happy to see us stay until winter storms prevented us from ever leaving, until the cold and lack of food finished us off, too, without ever having taken up our spears and arrows against the city.  Ai, yes, indeed, it would have pleased that faker no end if we had done nothing at all but sit about playing knuckle-bones, until the Náshiyan emperor himself came with his great army to slaughter us all.

"You are both my witnesses.  Let Kep'túr and It'áka remember what Argo swears to do.  I will have my revenge on Qálki, on Klutaimnéstra, and on Néstor for speaking up for the prophet.  And Ak'illéyu, too, I will never forget that feathered dog, either.  It was Ak'illéyu who supported the seer against me in the matter of my captive woman, as well.  Yes, Qálki demanded that I give her up, and return her to her priest-king father, even though I had conquered his island and he owed me vassalage and tribute.  What was that false prophet’s excuse, eh?  A few men sick, from pissing too close to the camp?  Everyone knows that evil smells attract foul spirits!  My own brother instructed the men on how to deal with that little problem.  A day or so more and there would have been no more illness!  But would anyone listen to us?  No, only the seer’s words held any weight with the army!  And I had to give up my woman.

“So that was why Ak'illéyu was so angered when I took his woman to replace mine.  He might have helped Qálki shame me before all Ak'áiwiya.  But the feather-head could not show his face when I shamed him, in turn.  Idé, think of all that time he spent sulking in his hut when he should have been fighting alongside us!  Every kingdom in Ak'áiwiya lost men in those battles because of Ak'illéyu's duplicity.  He, too, will pay.  Ak'illéyu will pay dearly.  Ip'emédeya's misery will not go unavenged.  I will have the blood of the false seer and of his fellow conspirators, I swear this by the river Stuks and the gates of 'Aidé!"  His voice had again risen to a shout.  With it, the enraged king had risen to his feet, ready to go out and slaughter his enemies forthwith.

"Wait," Odushéyu urged.  It took both of the lesser kings to keep the overlord from carrying out his threats immediately.  "Listen," the It'ákan wánaks cried in the higher king's ear, "I, too, know something that may interest you, something about this same prophet."  When Agamémnon stood still, Odushéyu whispered, so that none but the three of them would hear, "Qálki is an Assúwan.  I learned this from Patróklo's woman, Wíp'iya.  She also told me that Tróya cannot be defeated so long as the city retains its most sacred idol.  She called it the Qalladiyón.  Let us question Qálki.  Make him reveal what exactly this Qalladiyón is, what it looks like, and where it can be found.  Then we can find a spy who can find a way into the city to possess this thing and we will finally take Tróya!"

Agamémnon was delighted, and it seemed that his anger was temporarily forgotten.  "If you can accomplish that, Odushéyu, I will see that you take home with you more Tróyan tin than any king but me."

But Idómeneyu was skeptical.  "Why would Patróklo's woman talk to an It'ákan?  Besides, Ak'illéyu still hates us all so much that he would not even let you in the T'eshalíyan section of camp, much less allow you to carry out something as valuable as a woman.  And why would an Assúwan captive give you information that would help her enemies?  I cannot believe that you tortured her without anyone knowing."

Odushéyu laughed.  "It was far from torture, Idómeneyu.  I am surprised at you.  I thought Kep'túriyans were supposed to be men of the sea.  Any trader or pirate worthy of the name seduces a woman in every port he visits.  By the gods, I suppose I have more bastards than you have qasiléyus.  I lured the woman away from the T'eshalíyan huts with the promise of a little goose meat and a juglet of honey.  Wíp'iya told me these things because I slept with her and told her I loved her.  I swore she would not end her days toiling in the flax fields of cold T'eshalíya, among barbarians.  I promised to take her home in my ships and put her on the throne beside me, in place of my wife."

"You would do that?" Idómeneyu gasped, incredulous.  "You would lose your kingship if you divorced your Lakedaimóniyan priestess and wedded a foreign weaver.  Your people would rise up against you before you could consummate the marriage."

The It'ákan mariner chuckled.  "Ai, you are a poor excuse for a merchant, indeed.  What a man intends to do and what he promises a foreign woman on the sheepskins are two very different things, my friend."

aaa

Across the Inner Sea to the west, far from the besieged city, Klutaimnéstra sat on her husband's throne.  The great room was warm, heated by the fire constantly burning on the large, central hearth on its raised platform.  Surrounded by frescoes of painted tribute bearers and armed men marching off to war, the queen administered the southern kingdoms of Argo and Lakedaimón in the absence of the two kings and the abducted queen of the second land.  As befitted the wánasha of Ak'áiwiya's richest and strongest realm, she wore a dozen flounced skirts, each layer woven in a different pattern from the others, each a different color and adorned with small, gold trinkets.  Her long, henna-reddened hair lay in loose curls over her shoulders and her back, entwined with strings of blue lapis and red carnelian beads, necklaces of other precious stones at her neck and lying over her ample breasts, left bare by the tight bodice.  Her lips were painted red with ochre, ground and mixed with a little oil.  The same pigment and oil had been used to paint rosettes on her cheeks and the backs of her plump hands.