Conspiracy of the Islands (The Age of Bronze)

by Diana Gainer

  "By Diwiyána," Orésta gasped behind him, "we have gone off the edge of the world. This must be the river Stuks and these horsemen are dáimons of 'Aidé. We are in the land of the dead."

  One of the mounted beings raised his spear over the wildly tossing hair of his head and shouted at Diwoméde. The qasiléyu breathed heavily, sweating with fear. "He is going to run me through," he gulped, his eyes glued to the threatening javelin.

  But the shouting dáimon repeated his strange cry, this time gesturing for Diwoméde to drop his weapon. Outnumbered and surrounded, the warrior let the sword fall into what now seemed aptly named the Hostile Sea.

  But the Ak'áyans did not die there, where they stood. With gestures and with blows from the butts of their spears, the riders drove Orésta and Diwoméde to the grassy shore. There, women and children waited, clothed in the same odd fashion as the men, although the women's tunics were longer, falling just past their knees. All talked excitedly among themselves in a language neither Argive could understand. The crowd parted as the riders came among them. But then the gathering closed again around the prisoners. One of the spear-bearers struck Orésta hard and the young man fell, to uproarious laughter from all the strangers, mounted and on foot.

  The qasiléyu was no less frightened than his companion, but this was something he understood, taking captives, parading them, humiliating them. Diwoméde pulled the younger man to his feet again, shouting defiant curses at the horsemen and threatening them with his fist. "Préswa take you all," he cried. "Give me a spear and I will fight any one of you, living or dead, man or dáimon!"

  The younger Argive's head was reeling and he could do nothing but cling to his companion's arm. "Do not say the name of the queen of the dead," he whispered with fear-numbed lips, "or she may appear."

  The people encircling the captives moved back suddenly, giving them room, as Diwoméde continued to curse them. For a moment, he thought he had impressed them with his courage. But then a woman approached from outside the circle and it was clear that the crowd had parted in deference to her. She was smaller than the others and different from the rest in appearance. Where the others' hair was straight, and as red as their little horses' hides, hers was black and curly like the Argives', though she wore it in the same double braid as the rest of the women. The sky-colored eyes of the riders and their wives and children had increased the prisoners' dread, but this woman's eyes were brown like those of the prisoners.

  The Ak'áyans watched with quaking knees as the woman came toward them. Orésta's mouth fell open in awe and he gulped, "Préswa…." The younger Argive pressed his lean body up against Diwoméde's but the qasiléyu was shivering as violently as his kinsman.

  The small woman's dark eyes burned with the same eerie light that had flickered in T'úwa's. Clearly, she recognized the divine name. "You are Ak'áyans," she said to the visitors, her chilling speech flawlessly understandable. "In the name of the goddesses Dobrógeya and Dúni, great mother and divine daughter, whose priestess I am, I pronounce your fate. It has been the custom here, since the foundation of the world, to sacrifice all strangers. My people know of Mar-Ashántiyans and T'rákiyans, Náshiyans and Pálayans, Wilúsiyans and Slávkayans. But you have condemned yourselves to death by speaking in an accursed tongue that none but I can understand. As you cannot address us in truly human language, animals you are then, sent to us by mother Dobrógeya. You will be hallowed in the waves and your blood poured out on the goddess Dúni's altar."

  The dark woman stepped back and flung her arms wide, the beads of her necklaces clattering, amber and silver, shell and bone. One of the riders leaped down from his horse, holding his javelin out toward the prisoners. Hanging from the butt end was something dark, something tied there that fluttered in the wind. Diwoméde thought at first that it might be feathers and it puzzled him that he should be shown this mundane thing after so ominous a threat.

  But Orésta gulped and clutched his half-brother's arm. "Great Díwo, it is a man's scalp!" he cried. His skin crawled at the realization and he vomited at the strange rider's feet. Another round of laughter passed through the crowd and two children, straight white hair falling in their eyes, mimicked the sound and Orésta's actions. Unmoved either by the Argives' fear or their captors' mirth, the priestess stood watching.

  Diwoméde was aghast. But the woman had called herself a priestess, he noted. She was not the goddess of the underworld, then. These people must be human, too, not dáimons. "By Diwiyána, are your people cannibals?" he demanded of the dark-haired woman.

  Her eyes softened for a moment and she repeated the name of the Ak'áyan goddess in a whisper. Looking the two men over more carefully, she asked, "Where do you come from? What kingdom?"

  Orésta leaned against the older man, pale and sweating. His youthful eyes fastened on the woman's face. Enthralled, he whispered, "Préswa knows her mother's name."

  Seeing that his companion was not going to answer, Diwoméde finally spat out his reply. "Argo, but why do you care? What difference does it make where we are from, if you are going to eat us?"

  With her cold and hard voice, the priestess answered, "I am from Argo, myself. I wish to send a message back to those of my kinsmen who still live there. One of you will be spared to take my letter. Choose between yourselves. Which of you will live? Which of you will die?" The priestess turned to the dominant spearman and spoke in the strange tongue of the pale horsemen. He and the others of his tribe relaxed, waiting, watching the captives.

  Diwoméde glanced around at the hostile faces with their ominous, light eyes. He wanted with all his heart to be the messenger, the one to live. It would be easy enough to arrange it, since Orésta remained silent, staring like a simpleton at the dark woman's face. The qasiléyu need simply announce that he would carry the letter and it would be done. He looked at Orésta beside him, younger, smaller, too frightened to speak. Their father had died because Diwoméde had not been beside him. How could he ever face Agamémnon's shade if he condemned the dead king's only son? Taking a deep breath, Diwoméde told the younger man, "You go. I have cheated lady Préswa more than once, already. It must be my fate to die here."

  Orésta forced himself to stand erect, though his knees still trembled. "No, no, you should be the one to go. You are older, an experienced warrior, with loyal followers. Go and avenge our father."

  Having decided that his half-brother should live, the qasiléyu shook his head. "No, that is more your duty than mine. Besides, 'Ermiyóna needs you. Who else does she have but her useless father?"

  "By Dobrógeya and Dúni!" cried the strange woman, interrupting them. "I have heard legends of such loyalty between men, but I did not believe they were true. Such friendship I have never seen in all my years on this shore." She looked at each man in turn several times in amazement.

  Beside the priestess, the bearded javelin carrier spoke, indicating the captives with his head. He was clearly displeased, his voice harsh and demanding. The woman turned on the impatient horseman angrily and the Argives continued their discussion.

  "You must be the one to go," Orésta said, his voice firmer and his trembling stilled. "You will do what needs to be done without flinching, even though it is distasteful and bloody. I know this. You take her message, Diwoméde."

  At the sound of the qasiléyu's name, the priestess broke off speaking to her companion and burst into scornful laughter. "Diwoméde! Idé, a distinguished name for one of such loyalty," she said with heavy sarcasm. "The god Díwo is father to so many maináds and dáimons that every woman accused of adultery will boldly deny her sin and say of her little bastard, 'I got it in counsel with Díwo.' Well then, 'Díwo's-Counsel,' will you take my message to Argo?"

  Biting his lip to control his anger, the qasiléyu answered grimly, "No, lady, I will not." In a tone that let Orésta know that he would listen to no more arguments, Diwoméde told his kinsman, "Go, my brother, and do the things we planned. Aígist'o must be driven from the throne. I could do that much, but you mus
t have realized by now that I could never rule Argo. I am only a simple shepherd at heart. You are the strategist. It was you who found a way to make Menést'eyu betray his own city. Go. Take the letter back to Argo. Avenge our father, Orésta."

  The younger man ducked his head to hide the tears that came unbidden to his eyes. He said nothing more.

  The woman's aspect changed. She seemed stricken with grief. "Orésta?" the priestess asked breathlessly, her chest heaving and her eyes wide. Reaching toward the youth's dark hair, she whispered, "I once had a little brother named Orésta, in another life." She looked him over searchingly.

  This did not please the red-haired men and women about them. They began to shout, as much at the dark-eyed priestess as at the two prisoners. The mounted horsemen shook their lances and gave a ululating cry, as Ak'áyans had always done before battle – and sacrifice. Diwoméde was alarmed, looking around the crowd quickly, ready to dodge any javelins that might be hurled.

  Orésta noticed none of it. His eyes stayed on the face of the dark-haired priestess. "Ip'emédeya?" he asked, scarcely believing it.

  As quickly as her face had softened before, now the strange woman turned cold and harsh again. She struck Orésta's cheek with her fist and spat on him, angrily calling out a few barbarian words that began with the divine name, Dúni, and ended with Dobrógeya. Raising her leather-encased arms high, the priestess threw her head back and shouted up at the sky. The crowd of pale horsemen and their families repeated the gesture and the cries.

  Then the prisoners were taken away, pushed along by spear-butts and kicks, to the largest of the half-buried dwellings. Four Mar-Yandún men dismounted and entered the dark hut, shoving Orésta and Diwoméde ahead of them. Inside, the red-haired men bound the captives, back to back, on either side of the central pillar that held up the building's roof. With a few final kicks and incomprehensible curses the horsemen left the Argives alone.

  aaa

  In Tawári, the Lakedaimóniyan king kept to himself, once Orésta and Diwoméde were gone. His uneasy rowers busied themselves about their ships, repacking food supplies in the hulls, repairing the smallest leaks with black bitumen. For several days, the Mar-Ashántiyans left them to their own devices. But when the moon was full, Meneláwo was invited to dine with the high priest, T'úwa. Fearful of the power of the Mar-Ashántiyan's evil eyes, his men urged him to go, so as not to offend their host, but to go alone. The wánaks agreed only reluctantly, preferring to brood in solitude. But it was his duty to represent his people, the Lakedaimóniyans and Argives told him. It might even be that the lives of his nephews, Orésta and Diwoméde, depended upon the pleasure of the strange priest.

  Meneláwo was uncomfortable in T'úwa's small, dark cabin. The house had only two rooms and the men seemed to be in the darkest one, lit only by the coals of a fire in its sunken, central hearth. The two men sat on benches, nothing to support their backs, no cushioning fleeces between them and the wood. Meneláwo politely made no complaint, but his side ached and he could not help shifting his position time and again.

  The food was hot but unfamiliar to the Ak'áyan's tongue. They ate coarse, unleavened bread spread with a strange paste that reeked of fish. While Meneláwo could scarcely force himself to swallow one of these pies, T'úwa wolfed down half a dozen.

  "You are not hungry?" the priest asked suspiciously, rubbing his hands clean on his tunic of black wool.

  "I have no appetite these days," Meneláwo answered truthfully, waving away the second helping of fish bread that T'úwa offered.

  The priest shrugged unconcernedly and ate the food himself, pouring a large cup of wine. Holding up the jug, a grayish thing Wilúsiyan in style, he raised thin eyebrows questioningly.

  Meneláwo tried to stretch his right leg, leaning to the other side and supporting his weight on his left arm. "Yes," he managed to grunt and he reached for the jug with his free hand. To his chagrin a groan escaped him as his hand took the weight of the vessel. He found it difficult to maintain his grip and nearly dropped the jug. "I am an old man," he complained, ruefully shaking his head, "too old for such long journeys."

  There was no response from T'úwa and much of the meal passed in silence. As his guest consumed only wine, the priest feasted, calling for nuts, which he cracked in his hands, and apples, the dry and withered remains of last year's crop.

  When the wine jugs were empty, Meneláwo's side no longer forced him to squirm in his seat like a small boy. His tongue loosened and he began to tell pointless, rambling stories that he had heard from his father many years before.

  T'úwa's green eyes stayed on his guest throughout the evening, and their harsh glare was not softened when it became obvious that the Lakedaimóniyan king was drunk. "Do you drink wine often?" the high priest asked contemptuously in his woman's voice.

  Meneláwo nodded, reclining unsteadily on the bench. "Every day."

  "And do you often get drunk?" T'úwa asked, showing his distaste in the down-turned corners of his mouth.

  Again Meneláwo nodded. The action unbalanced him and he spilled his wine. "Whenever I can," he sighed, looking down at the stain on the earthen floor.

  With a short, mocking laugh at the man's honesty, T'úwa asked, "Why is that? What sorrows does a rich Ak'áyan king have to drown?"

  But Meneláwo was preoccupied, trying to sit up so that he could refill his cup. He found he was unable to raise himself with only one arm and did not realize at first that he would have to put the cup down to use both hands. He did not hear the question. The priest did not repeat it, either, but sat with his arms crossed on his wide chest, watching the Lakedaimóniyan's struggle. At last, Meneláwo dropped his cup and, using both hands to push at the bench, managed to sit up. Having forgotten what he was trying to do, he stared at the smooth-cheeked priest. "Are you a eunuch?" groggily asked the wánaks, unmindful of the pale eyes glaring back at him.

  Bitter fury lit T'úwa's face. "Yes," the high priest hissed. "The Náshiyan emperor had me castrated as a child, and all my kinsmen executed, as punishment for my father's crimes. My father was a Millewándan, son of a great sea-faring warrior, Piyamáradu. Perhaps you have heard of him. No? He was disloyal and rebelled against the empire." He spread his hands and looked down at himself, as if to display his true form. "My voice will never deepen. My beard will never grow. I am the last of my line."

  Meneláwo slumped, his elbows on his knees, his face in his battered hands. "Owái," he groaned and he began to cry. "It is the same with every king," he wept. "The man who has power takes advantage of those who have none. Ai, my own father was one of the worst. I was hardly better when I came to Lakedaimón's throne." His shoulders shook with sobs and all his anguish poured forth, a flood of tears unstopped by too much wine.

  T'úwa was surprised at the king's reaction and could think of nothing to say.

  "When the Wilúsiyans stole my wife," Meneláwo miserably went on, "I took it as a blow to my manhood. Ariyádna had to be restored to me, and I thought nothing of committing all of Ak'áiwiya to my cause. Owái, Ariyádna, what have I done? Ai, Kástor, Poludéyuke, I am sorry, I am so sorry. I would give my right arm to have you back at my side!"

  The priest was more astonished than before. "It is indeed the nature of the high born to cause suffering," he stated philosophically, as if he had said as much many times before. "In the same way, it is the fate of the low born to suffer at the hands of their betters. I do not understand what you are grieving for, but my misfortune can mean nothing to you. Calm yourself, my friend. Have another cup of wine and then go to bed."

  Meneláwo moaned, rubbing his head with both hands. "Ai, T'úwa, I have insulted your hospitality with my behavior tonight. You are right. I should go. But your suffering is not nothing to me. It is another reminder of my family's curse. When I brought the Ak'áyan army to Náshiyan shores, I began something I still do not understand. I only wanted my wife back. But my army broke the Náshiyan empire into pieces, and now piracy is rampant in every sea, drought
and famine plague every land. The whole world is shattered and I am to blame.

  "Ai, never did I think I could bring about such destruction. My father before me and my grandfather attacked Náshiya. They had less reason than I did, but their acts had little effect. Or so I thought until now. You may have heard of my kinsmen, T'úwa. My father was Atréyu. He sacked many of Assúwa's cities when emperor Qáttushli was on the throne. When Qáttushli did nothing to Ak'áiwiya in return, all of Assúwa's coastal kingdoms rose in revolt. Ai, the emperor may have feared to strike a king overseas, but he had no qualms about crushing the rebellion of his own vassals. I heard that Qáttushli committed many atrocities, but I assumed these stories were only rumors.

  "You asked if I had heard of Piyamáradu. Idé, he is my own kinsman, brother of my grandfather. When fate turned against him, my grandfather fled to Argo and abandoned yours to his fate. Owái, T'úwa, here you are all the way across the world from me and still my house touches you with its curse! Owái, what have I done? What I have done?"

  The Mar-Ashántiyan priest smiled slightly. "You are carrying the burdens of other men, Meneláwo, and of gods. But you Ak'áyans worship Díwo, do you not? He rules over contracts and weighs truth and falsehood in his scales before he acts. Is that not so? Now, my friend, would a just god spare an evil man and punish his innocent son? No, Ak'áyan, you have nothing to do with the rain or the crimes of dead men. Nor was the fate of the Náshiyan empire ever in your simple hands. The gods do as they please and their reasons are theirs alone. Have another sip of wine." He retrieved the Lakedaimóniyan's cup from the floor, with some difficulty over his large belly, and refilled it. As Meneláwo swallowed the liquid, T'úwa asked, "You evidently went to a lot of trouble to retrieve your queen. Did you love her?"