by Diana Gainer
'Iqodámeya ducked her head to hide her disappointment and grief. "Yes, lady," she whispered and left the chamber.
T'éti waited until the low-ranked woman was gone, then laid her head on the sheepskins beside the king's and burst into floods of tears. Raking her cheeks with her fingernails, she wailed as unrestrainedly as 'Ermiyóna ever had, choking on her sobs, her body shaking with emotion. The depth of her passion could be heard throughout the corridors of the citadel. The others in the palace wept in each other's arms, knowing that the wánaks was dead, fearful of the future.
They ate nothing that night and the women and older children remained awake through the dark hours, chanting laments. The terror they had felt earlier in the day recalled to their minds the horrors of Tróya, so many years before, memories they had suppressed during the intervening years. Andrómak'e mourned her Qántili with all the intensity she had known when the T'eshalíyan prince, Ak'illéyu, first dragged his corpse across the Wilúsiyan plain. 'Iqodámeya mourned the T'eshalíyan slayer of Andrómak'e's husband with equal fervor. He had loved her and Ak'illéyu had promised 'Iqodámeya he would marry her one day. His death had kept her from rising from the status of captive concubine to lawful wife. Mármaro and his brothers forgot how close they were to manhood and wept alongside their sorrowing aunt. Old enough to remember Tróya, they slept little, like the women reliving their anguished past, troubled by nightmares when they dozed. The younger children cried themselves to sleep, their mothers unable to comfort them.
T'éti, too, when her first wave of grief was spent, mourned her lost children as much as for the quiet man beside whom she sat. The queen pulled off her upper garment and tore her breasts. She scratched her withered cheeks that were already scarred from losses suffered in years past. And she sang lamentations, hour upon hour, rocking herself from side to side.
Just at dawn, the wánasha, like all the older queens a priestess, entered a trance. Her soul took flight from her aging body and soared to the realms of the dáimons and maináds. In her altered state, T'éti saw the past and future. Hoarsely, she called out her prophecies. Her unseeing eyes roamed the chamber without blinking, her voice like the cawing of crows. Even the older children were frightened by the change in this woman they had known most of their lives, and, with the equally unnerved serving women, they stayed as far away from the royal bed-chamber as they could.
'Iqodámeya nervously began the preparations for the funeral feast, when the sun was well up. She put the anxious children to work as well, to keep their minds off their fears. "Someone should go to her," Andrómak'e whispered to her. "She may try to harm herself." The women looked at each other, but neither dared to approach the aging priestess. Their anxious eyes fell upon Érinu, as he helped his nephews carry firewood in from the courtyard. "You were a priest once," Andrómak'e said in a small voice, afraid to ask him directly.
To her surprise and relief, Érinu only nodded solemnly. "I will go to her," he agreed simply.
"A great storm rages across all the civilized lands of the world," T'éti cried, when Érinu entered her chamber and took his seat beside her on the royal bed. The old woman held a hand over her eyes as if shading them from the sun's bright light. She peered into a distant place that Érinu could not see. "But another, still fiercer storm is on the way," the priestess went on in her unearthly roar. "It will sweep away all the treasures of this age. Men, women, and children will die in great numbers, sheep without a shepherd. The survivors will wash up on distant shores like driftwood, from the wrecked ships of Ak'áiwiya's kingdoms. It will be the same with Assúwa, no different for Kanaqán. Even Mízriya will be overwhelmed. It is the end of world, the end of the age of bronze. Our divine father, Poseidáon, has been overthrown."
Érinu was awestruck at the words of the queen and seeress. "Tell me, lady," he called, speaking loudly, as if she were a stone's throw away, "tell me what you see. What will become of T'eshalíya? Tell me," he added, the hairs stiffening on his neck as he said it, "what will happen to the last of king Alakshándu's kin?"
T'éti's head fell to one side, and her pale, tangled locks draped the still face of the corpse on the bed. The queen smiled, but with her mouth only. Her sightless eyes remained wide and forbidding, the pupils so wide that the color of the iris could hardly be seen. More quietly than before, she spoke, exulting, "Idé, my beloved Péleyu, you are not dead. I knew you would not leave this world without me. My husband, you are only sleeping. Your weary soul rests with the maináds of the sea. Your spirit dwells in the happy kingdom of the daughters of Father Poseidáon. We will lay your tired body in the sacred cave of Diwiyána, in the heart of the highest and holiest mountain of T'eshalíya. Sleep soundly on Mount Olumpo, my dear one, rest until T'eshalíya needs you. Wait for me there, in your mountain tomb, Péleyu, until I come to lie beside you. Then you and I will dwell in the blessed land of 'Aidé together."
T'éti swayed and her head fell back. Érinu caught her in his arms and laid her gently on the bed beside her husband's body. He lifted her feet from the floor and laid them, too, upon the sheepskins. Suddenly, the queen rose up again, half-sitting and supporting herself on one elbow. With her free hand she grasped the startled slave by the arm, gripping him so tightly that he winced.
"Péleyu!" she cried, her face transfigured with joy, her breathing accelerated with excitement. "Look there! I see our beloved son! It is Ak'illéyu, walking dry-shod over the sea from Tróya!" She fell back on the fleeces, releasing Érinu's arm. He rubbed his arm, where red welts had already begun to swell up.
The queen reached for him again and he jumped. But this time she took his hand gently. "Ai, my dear child," she whispered, her eyes on the captive's face, but seeing another's. "Ai, Ak'illéyu, I understand now. You saw the storm coming, did you not? You chose the short but glorious life knowingly, just as Púrwo said. My son, my sweet child, it was a wise choice." Her eyelids drooped, her hands fell limply. She began to snore lightly.
Érinu stood, trembling, gazing down at the sleeping woman. He thought of his own white-haired mother, and the lively, toothy smile she had so often flashed before the Ak'áyans had come to Wilúsiya. He thought then of her final fate, seeing her sons and husband slaughtered. He remembered her being dragged from Tróya as it went up in flames. She was apportioned by lot to Odushéyu but never once did she lie with the Ak'áyan. With all the wild passion of a mainád, she had cursed her captors, calling down upon the Ak'áyans all the horrors that the gods could possibly inflict on humankind. Stung with fear of such divine retribution, the It'ákans had silenced her with stones. The slave bit his lip and pressed his hands to his chest at the pain of that memory. "Wánasha," he said aloud, "T'éti, tell me. What will become of the house of Alakshándu?"
The old woman's eyes shot open and for a moment she gazed at him with the ferocity of a wild beast. He stepped back, shaken, his hands falling to his sides. Then T'éti blinked and suddenly her face was the familiar one of the days before. "Érinu," she commanded, with full, regal composure. "Call Andrómak'e and 'Iqodámeya to me, and bring all the children, Moloshíya, Sqamándriyo, all three of Paqúr's sons. You must bring every single one of them before me."
Érinu was still for a moment. He frowned and clenched his fists. It was not his way to obey without resistance. But there was something in the queen's eyes that goaded him to do her will. He nodded slightly and turned to the door.
When the members of the royal household reached the royal bed-chamber, T'éti was sitting up. She had not combed her hair or straightened her torn clothing, but sat with such an air of authority that she seemed to display these outward signs of grief with pride. "Come here, Moloshíya," she commanded. The girl came with wide eyes, and took the queen's hand when the old woman reached for her. "Princess," said the wánasha, "your grandfather and your brother Púrwo are dead. I will not live much longer myself." T'éti patted Moloshíya's hand as the child began to cry. "Now, now, let us have none of that. You carry the sacred kingship of T'eshalíya no
w," the white-haired queen told her. "Whoever you marry will rule this land. I am only sorry that you must be wed so soon. You are still just a little thing and your hair is not grown out. You are not yet a priestess or even a scribe. Just the same, you must take a husband right away and sit on the throne as T'eshalíya's new wánasha."
The old woman's eyes fell upon the tallest of the youths, as the boys uncomfortably shuffled their feet by the door. "Mármaro," the queen snapped. The young man's head came up quickly in response to her sharp tone, and, with many uneasy glances to the right and left, he came to stand beside Moloshíya. T'éti took his hand in one of hers, still holding the girl's in the other. "Mármaro, I adopted you as my own when you came here from Tróya. But now, I must ask you to forget that and do what I could not ask of my own blood kin, what even Púrwo could not do. You must marry Moloshíya."
The youth jumped at the command, but he nodded. He looked at his foster sister in surprise and Moloshíya looked back, now too overwhelmed to cry. "Yes, Grandmother," Mármaro gulped. Already his chest began to swell with pride. He understood, though the old woman had not said it, that he was to be the next wánaks of T'eshalíya.
"Kurawátta, Idálu!" T'éti called, dropping the hands of the youthful couple before her. As Mármaro and Moloshíya stepped aside, the wánasha commanded Paqúr's younger sons to guard their foster-sister well. Just as curtly, the queen exhorted 'Iqodámeya to stay in her daughter's house. "You were not a queen in Wilúsiya but you were high born. Guide Moloshíya in her new role as best you can." The new queen stared up at her mother and 'Iqodámeya smiled at her. The woman smiled still more warmly, glancing back at her two younger children peeking around Érinu in the doorway. They, too, were of Péleyu's royal line. Now that their older sister was secure in her high status, they would no longer suffer the uncertainty of being a king's illegitimate offspring by a lowly concubine.
Sqamándriyo had watched the other boys' faces lighten, envying them as he had throughout his childhood. He looked up at his mother with hurt in his eyes. "She does not remember about me," he whispered unhappily and the woman sighed and nodded, caressing his childish forelock.
But T'éti had not forgotten. "Sqamándriyo," she said next. "Bring your mother here." The woman came with her son, her baby resting quietly on her hip. Her eyes were downcast, though her son's were suddenly filled with hope. "And Érinu," added the queen, "where are you?"
The other captive had watched in brooding silence from the doorway. He expected nothing for himself, but felt he had to know the fate of the rest of his kinfolk. Surprised by the wánasha's call, he stood bolt upright but did not come forward. The others in the room moved aside to let him pass. "Ai, Érinu, you have always been as stubborn as a donkey," T'éti scolded. She beckoned impatiently. "Come here. I am not going to punish you."
Andrómak'e watched him step forward with wondering eyes, now as hopeful as her son. Érinu began to shiver with expectancy, looking from his brother's widow to the T'eshalíyan queen. T'éti gazed on the couple for a long while in silence. The air of command gradually slipped away until there was only a sorrowful, old woman before them on the bed. Although Sqamándriyo remained eager to hear what the queen had to say, his mother and uncle began to be afraid.
"All my life I strove to do what was right," T'éti told them wearily. "You may not believe it, but I raised my son to do the same." The Tróyans who remembered Ak'illéyu trembled at his mention. "Andrómak'e," whispered the queen, "give me your hand." As warmly as she had treated Moloshíya, T'éti held Andrómak'e's hand and patted it. "My boy wronged you, I know." She sighed. "I did not raise him that way. I wanted you to know that."
"Yes, wánasha," Andrómak'e responded softly. "I know."
T'éti took a deep breath. Her voice threatened to break as she spoke again, but its volume filled the dark chamber. "Andrómak'e, Érinu, I grant you your freedom. O Mother Diwiyána, forgive Ak'áiwiya for what her men did at Tróya and let my decrees this day turn wrong into right. My grandson conquered the Párpariyan tribesmen of T'esprotíya. But because Púrwo took T'esprotíya by force, Moloshíya does not bear that land's kingship as her dowry. I understand these things only too well now. Fate will never allow T'eshalíya's king to hold onto a land that is over the Píndaro mountains."
The old woman's eyes lost their focus for a moment and her head drooped. Andrómak'e and Érinu looked at each other in confusion. What did T'esprotíya have to do with them?
Weakly, the white-haired queen mused, "Ai, Érinu, you were right not to submit to our authority. Your destiny is clear. Tróya's royal family must rule again. Take Andrómak'e to be your queen, Érinu. Raise her children as your own. I give you T'esprotíya to rule. The people there are not Ak'áyans. They will gladly support you against any Zeyugelátes' attacks."
As the former captives gasped and looked at each other, not yet daring to believe, the wánasha sighed. "All the north understands now that sacking Tróya was a mistake. It angered the gods and brought about this time of troubles. I do not pretend to know why, but the goddess must have meant for the ‘Elléniyan priestess to remain across the Inner Sea, never to return to her homeland. Qoyotíya has now sent to Tróya for a priestess of Apúluno to come to their most sacred shrine at Put'ó. Queen Laqíqepa and king Antánor have promised to send one of their daughters. In return, Lókri's king will send a royal daughter to be a servant of Dáwan in Tróya's holiest shrine. Gods and goddesses, I beg of you, let this penance be enough. All of Ak'áiwiya prays the same with me. Mother Diwiyána, Father Díwo, turn back this evil tide that has covered all of our lands for the past ten years. Give us peace. Give us rain. Give...." And the widowed queen of T'eshalíya slumped against her husband's cold form.
aaa
The southern Ak'áyans under Diwoméde and Meneláwo spent the night on the island of Éyuqoya. By firelight, the leaders planned their strategy for the future. Odushéyu urged them to head south, or, at the very least, to let him go south with a few vessels under his command. His son had been seeking him and that could only mean that things had not gone well for Penelópa. Now Ainyáh was surely patrolling southern waters, too, and that could not fail to worsen the situation. The It'ákan could not wait to return to his homeland and retake his throne.
"Think what that would mean, Orésta," the exile pleaded. "If your plans succeed at Mukénai, Diwoméde will rule in Aitolíya, you in Lakedaimón. Puláda will take the throne in Argo, allied to the both of you by kinship and marriage. Let me restore It'áka to the southern alliance and together the four of us will conquer Mesheníya. Then the whole of the south will be united. Ai, how that would please Agamémnon! We will even elect you overlord. Ai, if we cannot match your father's dream of a greater Ak'áiwiya, let us at least create a confederation of Zeyugelátes!
"Who knows what the gods may allow in the future? From Aitolíya, Diwoméde can march against Lókri, you can place your own qasiléyu in Qoyotíya, and together we may be able to force the rest of the north to pay us tribute. Such an alliance could easily assault even the Mízriyan empire and conquer the whole of the delta."
Diwoméde found himself caught up in the islander's excitement. But, thinking of Dáuniya's short trust for the pirate, the qasiléyu bit his tongue and waited for the legitimate son of Agamémnon to speak first. When Orésta did so, his objections quickly returned Diwoméde to reality.
"I spoke with Qelémak'o myself," the younger Argive informed the aging pirate. "It so happens that your queen Penelópa is far from being endangered. She has played one potential suitor off against another for ten years, resisting all attempts to force her to choose. She is a shrewd ruler and has consolidated her control of Enwáli, on the mainland, as well as of the islands. The Further Province of Mesheníya is more hers than Néstor's, also. No, Odushéyu, you are dreaming of splendors you will never see. I would not attempt an assault on It'áka myself, even if I ruled Lakedaimón and Argo both. These two kingdoms have suffered one misfortune after another for more than a decade, losin
g population every year. Meanwhile, Penelópa's lands have prospered and grown more populous. The best that we can hope for at this time is to stem our losses."
Diwoméde glanced over at Meneláwo. The older king sprawled naked upon a sheepskin pallet, snoring loudly, a small, poppy-shaped jar close to his face. "Should we at least wake him and ask his opinion, as he is older than you both?"
"No," Orésta and Odushéyu said simultaneously. The younger man added, "We know what he wants." He briefly told his half-brother what they had learned of Ip'emédeya.
"Then our course is clear," Diwoméde responded, surprised and innervated by the revelation. "Orésta, you and I must go and rescue Ip'emédeya. It would be dishonorable to leave our kinswoman among barbarians."
"Rescue her!" Odushéyu cried in dismay. When he saw hostility in the younger men's eyes, he quickly went on. "Certainly, yes, we must see how she is doing. But she has lived beyond the straits for years. Another one will do her no harm. Let us go south now, while the weather is still clear for sailing."
Orésta snorted. "The Inner Sea has hardly seen rain for over a decade and you still fear the winter. There is no need to act quickly."
The It'ákan threw his hands in the air. "Young men always think they know more than their elders. But I have lived longer and I have seen many droughts. Just suppose that this year the rain comes again? What will you say if the wind rises and cracks your mast in two?"
"I am with Orésta," Diwoméde announced firmly. "We will bring Ip'emédeya back to Ak'áiwiya and…"
"I did not say that," Orésta broke in. "My sister's fate weighs heavily on my mind. I have no intention of abandoning her. But my father's need for vengeance is greater. His soul has had to roam the world for ten years, thirsting the whole time. Is it right to make him wait still longer?"
