Conspiracy of the Islands (The Age of Bronze)

by Diana Gainer

  The Kanaqániyan nodded. Tersely, he announced, "Kurawátta was taken captive."

  "Owái, not again!" Andrómak'e cried, clapping her hands to her face.

  "Mármaro died," Ainyáh added, as brusquely as before.

  Sqamándriyo burst into tears and turned to his mother's arms. She mourned the older son of Paqúr in a brief lament, scratching her cheeks until they bled. "Owái, it could so easily have happened to my Sqamándriyo too!" she wept, holding her older boy tightly.

  Érinu sadly rebuked the two. "None of that now! It was fate. The goddess allowed this because the boys turned against their own blood-kin. Mármaro and Kurawátta allowed themselves to become Ak'áyans, against the call of their own flesh. That breaks Dáwan's laws. We do not mourn Ak'áiwiya's losses."

  Andrómak'e turned angrily toward her new husband. "Ai, you men talk easily of honor and law!" she cried with some heat. "But to a woman, the prime virtue is the survival of her children. Wóinone would get no satisfaction from the death of her oldest son. I do not believe Paqúr is rejoicing to see poor Mármaro in 'Aidé."

  "Can we ransom Kurawátta?" Sqamándriyo asked, gripping his mother's arm.

  She nodded. Before her husband could object, she spoke quickly through her tears, "Yes, my son. Érinu, my dearest, we must send a payment to Mízriya. We can at least bring Kurawátta home, for your sister-in-law's sake and for your brother's."

  The priest-king agreed without argument. "Yes, that at least we can do without dishonor. Ainyáh, will you take my bronze to the south for this purpose? It will be the final task that I ask of you."

  The Kanaqániyan nodded. "I will, as soon as the month of sailing begins next spring." As the little royal family returned to thoughts of the dead, Ainyáh added, "Before I go to my ships this night, I have one more question. What should be done about Odushéyu? He is bound in my longboat and under guard at the moment. If you wish, I will kill him."

  But Érinu refused. "No, Ainyáh, that would be dishonorable. He did as we demanded. Prince Qelémak'o must be released from his storeroom prison, as I swore, and sent to the southernmost province under my rule. Odushéyu's life will be spared, too, as my oath requires. I know that you and I had discussed the possibility of executing him, since he was a traitor to his own people, after all. But he acted only out of necessity, as you were once forced to do. If I now have him killed for that, I condemn you indirectly, as well."

  The Kanaqániyan mercenary raised an eyebrow shot through with gray. "But he cannot be allowed to go home. He would endanger my control of the western islands. Nor can he be freed, for the same reason. He is too clever and would surely discover a way to avenge himself on you."

  Érinu leaned back against his wooden throne and fingered the growing beard on his chin. "The It'ákan will go to the island of the winds, to Kérkura in the northwest. There he will stay as a guest of the Párpariyan chief for the rest of his life, whether he wishes it or not."

  aaa

  Peirít'owo remained in Mízriya after Ainyáh's departure. The exiled Kep'túriyan prince stood beneath the balcony of the Black Land's Great King, to watch the festival of victory. Bitterness and anger still burned in Peirít'owo's heart and he hoped that the celebration would finally give him satisfaction. He watched his fellow Ak'áyans, as they were paraded through Manufrí's streets, pelted with small stones and fistfuls of mud and dung by the Mízriyan natives. The curses of the common folk made the Kep'túriyan's ears ring. Peirít'owo remembered all too well when he and his father had taken the brunt of these same people's anger. The vividness of the memory pained him, ruining the joy he should have taken in seeing his vengeance carried out.

  Peirít'owo listened to the same flowery speeches in praise of the Great House, the divine son of the immortal ram, Amún, the great and golden Harú, emperor of the south. Ramusís was likened to a great wall protecting the fortress Mízriya, to a furious bull goring the barbarian nations with his horns, and trampling them under his royal feet. The divine king, beloved of the great goddesses, had accomplished this wondrous deed by the strength of his own arm, the Mízriyan nobles assured Ramusís. The high-born men bowed deeply from the waist, their necks bent upward as they tried to keep their wigs on their heads. The lesser ranked men repeated each elaborate phrase, kneeling and kissing the ground as they faced the emperor. At these proceedings, Peirít'owo found nothing to rejoice his heart. He knew that the monarch, heavy-set and short of stature, had not been at the great battle. Despite his massive, golden crown and his heavy collar of electrum and precious stones, the Great King looked more like a merchant than a warrior. The endless praises were hollow and Peirít'owo was soon bored, impatient for an end to the songs and speeches.

  When the virtues of the golden Harú, ruler of the Black Land, had been extolled sufficiently, and the sun was high overhead, the priests of Manufrí came forward with their shaved heads to sacrifice a young ox. These prophets were thin, Peirít'owo noticed, and the bare backs of many bore the scars of past violence. Despite their sacral status, their lot had not been easy through the years of disorder that had followed the death of the previous Ramusís. This new Ramusís might be the savior of Mízriya, Peirít'owo reflected, but he had been unduly slow in coming.

  After thanking the gods for their faithfulness to the southern empire, the holy men beckoned the Great King. Ramusís descended from his palace balcony to let fall the copper ax, severing the neck of the sacrificial animal. Again, Peirít'owo was struck by how ordinary the Mízriyan monarch looked, and how comical were his followers, his fan-bearers scampering to wave the hot air from the emperor's face, the servants with sunshades, and an attendant leading the king's tame lion. Each serving-man tried to approach the Great House of the Black Land more closely than his neighbor. But all of them constantly hopped to one side or the other to prevent the king's shadow from falling on them, as if the thing were deadly poison.

  Even with the axe in his hands, Ramusís himself was no more impressive, spattered with ox blood. The soft, transparent robes he wore made him seem almost womanish, a look completed by the plaited beard that was tied to his chin, and the dark paint encircling his eyes. It was hard for the Kep'túriyan prince to believe that Ramusís was the most powerful man in the world.

  Accompanied by more incantations from the priests, the booty from the campaign was presented to the empire's three primary deities, some of the loot allotted to Ptáha and Ra, the bulk of it to ram-headed Amún. Ramusís disappeared into the palace, reappearing once more on his balcony, his retinue of white-kilted servants ever at his back. Mízriyan soldiers piled up severed hands beneath the royal position, calling praises upward. The tokens of the slain were now black and rotting, filling the courtyard with their stench. Serving women hurried to present the portly king with garlands of flowers to protect the royal nose from the smell. Metal vessels and weapons were heaped beside the hands to still more sacred invocations.

  How small the piles seemed to Peirít'owo's eyes, how insignificant compared to the riches lost in his father's expedition a decade before. He slouched against the stone pillars of the ram-god's temple, weary of the interminable ceremony. Idly glancing toward the troop commanders in their short wigs and white kilts, he noted how many were dark-skinned men of Kaush, or wore Kanaqániyan amulets at their throats. The number of native Mízriyans in this army was actually quite small.

  The Kep'túriyan prince roused himself from his lethargy as the miserable, defeated kings of Ak'áiwiya were dragged forward, one a northerner, one from the south. Ramusís descended a second time to the courtyard, now bearing a mace of polished , yellowish alabaster on his shoulder. The exulting calls from the onlookers rose in volume for the culmination of the festival. The king grasped the hair of the exhausted P'ilísta and with a single blow the royal weapon spattered his blood and brains.

  T'rasuméde, bound alongside, cringed and cried out, his eyes wide with fear, as he realized what his fate was to be. He continued screaming, begging for mercy and reciting
the wealth and renown of his dead father. "Néstor traded with your land for years. Your own people have seen the fertility of Mesheníya's countryside. Spare me and my family will pay any ransom you name!" But Ramusís was not interested in a barbarian pirate's tribute. T'rasuméde died a moment later, just as his northern counterpart had.

  Peirít'owo expected to feel something. But he found himself unable to rejoice, even at the execution of the Ak'áyan leaders. The Kep'túriyan exile did not raise his voice to cheer, along with the crowd of high-born Mízriyans. The death of the leaders of the sea people left him cold. The chanting priests were again praising the accomplishments of the semi-divine Ramusís, wishing him life, prosperity, and health for millions of years, and listing the conquered foes of the southern empire of the Black Land. With their hands upraised, the shaved priests enumerated their fallen enemies, the various sea peoples, P'ilístas and Zeyugelátes, T'rákiyan and Diwiyániyan islanders. The Great House, the golden Harú had trampled under his feet the miserable Libúwans and Káushans, men of Kanaqániyan Sidún and Assúwan Tróya.

  Peirít'owo listened to the names with a growing sense of unease. Despite the mention of Libúwans, no shepherd chieftains from the western delta appeared among the prisoners. The prince was certain of it, since these nomads had come from the desert as allies of his father, years before. Perhaps Ramusís had defeated these people in another campaign, the Kep'túriyan thought. That was surely the case with the Káushans. However, Peirít'owo noticed wrly, not only did the dark men from the distant south outnumber the natives in the great monarch's own army, so too, there were countless black skins beneath the sheer gowns of the nobles. So ubiquitous were they that Peirít'owo wondered whether these "vanquished" Káushans would rule in Mízriya themselves one day soon.

  The Kep'túriyan prince tried to drive away the disturbing thought. Ak'áiwiya had forsaken his father a decade before and was now suffering for that crime. He should concentrate on that. With troubled eyes, he turned from the emperor's balcony and glared hard at the faces of the captives. Only a few men of his father's generation had survived the intervening years, he realized. The Ak'áyans now paying for the sufferings of Kep'túr's king had mostly been children, shepherd youths, when Peirít'owo's father had died. There was a bitter taste in the exile's mouth as he saw the captive P'ilístas and Zeyugelátes sent to temple strongholds. The enslaved prisoners would work hard in the fields of the Mízriyan temples, he knew, but they would eat. The real suffering would be that of the people across the Great Green Sea to the north. The women and children left at home, without men to help with planting and harvest, were facing starvation. When all was said and done, Kep'túr's former wánaks was still in 'Aidé. Idómeneyu's son was still alone in the world, without a home.

  Had his betrayal of the Ak'áyans gained him areté? Peirít'owo began to wonder about whether he had acted correctly, a new anguish taking hold of his soul. Would it really have been better to do as Diwoméde had said? The qasiléyu's last cry burned his ears and stung his heart. Would it truly have been better to make Mízriya pay?

  aaa

  On the island of Wórdo, as autumn began and the grain crop was sown, wánasha Poluksó received a message from 'Ermiyóna. Opening the wooden tablet, the queen ran her finger lightly over the symbols clumsily inscribed on yellow wax inside. "Ai," Poluksó sighed, shaking her white head. "Meneláwo is dead, as we thought. His nephew Orésta is now wánaks of Lakedaimón."

  "Should I tell the 'Elléniya?" asked a young woman seated before the throne. "Or will you give her the letter from her daughter, so she can read it herself?"

  "No, Ip'igéneya," answered the wánasha. "I will say nothing. Nor will you. That is my command. No one will tell the 'Elléniya she is a widow. Ai, she hardly knows her own name, as it is. Préswa will take her from us this winter, no doubt. Let her have peace in what little time remains."

  Late in the afternoon, Ip'igéneya ascended the low mountain that rose behind Poluksó's main citadel. Along a narrow, unpaved path the young woman made her way. As she walked, the boys guarding Wórdo's still-plentiful flocks saluted her, raising their hands to heart and forehead in religious awe. "That is the new priestess from Put'ó," the shepherds told each other, their voices hushed.

  Beyond the grassy pastures, higher on the slope, trees grew in great number. Among the oaks and firs of Diwiyána's sacred grove, Ip'igéneya sought out an older priestess.

  "Wánasha," Ip'igéneya said respectfully, when a woman's cloaked shape loomed out of the shadows of the undergrowth. "I am the seeress who rules Qoyotíya. I have come to visit you, lady." She repeated the gesture that the shepherds had made to her moments before.

  The cloaked woman turned toward Ip'igéneya. A thin, lined face peeked out from beneath the undyed wool. Dark, shadowed eyes gazed out with a look of infinite sadness. "Who are you?" she asked.

  The younger seeress found herself oddly uncomfortable. "I am Ip'igéneya of Put'ó, as I said. You are the 'Elléniya, are you not?"

  "I am," whispered the cloaked priestess. "Why have you come all this way? The Inner Sea is dangerous this time of year."

  "I have forgotten the sequence of holy signs," Ip'igéneya explained, with some embarrassment. "I cannot remember the spiral writing. You know the one I am talking about, do you not? It contained the most ancient prophecy of 'Elléniya, the tale of how the world will end. People say that you still recite it from time to time. Will you teach it to me?"

  The older woman turned away without answering and began to pad through the wood on bare feet. Ip'igéneya followed her, lifting her flounced skirts to avoid being caught on bushes and fallen twigs. "No other seeress is able to remember it all," the young priestess continued, apologetically. "Queen Poluksó has forgotten all but the beginning. Even T'eshalíya's queen T'éti cannot help. She recalls some of the words but she cannot see to write the symbols. But you three are the only fully trained seeresses alive in Ak'áiwiya. If you cannot help me, lady, I am afraid the knowledge will be lost forever."

  Ariyadná sat beside a little brook and stared into the clear water as if mesmerized. With upraised hands, trembling with age and weakness, Lakedaimón's wánasha chanted, her voice rising clear and strong one moment, dropping to an inaudible whisper the next:

  "Warriors battle and a tablet's message tells of a loss.

  The wánaks of the Fertile Land battles.

  He seeks over the sea for his wánasha.

  He is seeking, seeking, by the will of the Bee.

  Warriors battle for the captive from the Fertile Land's island….

  The Bull shakes the deep sea….

  The warrior battles by the will of the Bird for the treasures of At'ána's Land….

  Warriors battle by the will of the Bull and to the Bull they pray for the rich city….

  Díwo's Chosen does battle….

  He attacks the prophet of At'ána's Land."

  Ip'igéneya sighed. "Yes, wánasha," she said, with ill-concealed impatience. "That is what T'éti said. But the symbols! What are the signs with which it is written? How am I to understand the prophecy if I cannot write the words?"

  Ariyádna patted the younger woman's arm. "Ai, t'ugátriyon, you never learned to listen. That is only part of it. Turn the disk over and read the other side…"

  Ip'igéneya jumped at the old queen's touch and drew away. "I am not 'Ermiyóna," she cried, distressed. "Your daughter is across the Inner Sea. Owái, the maináds have indeed caught you, as Poluksó warned. You can do nothing for me, nothing." And she ran back through the grove, toward the walled palace below.

  "No, Ip'emédeya," the old woman whispered, when the young priestess was gone. "You are right here, little daughter, on this side of the sea. I know what you want but do you not see? You and I have already seen the end of this world of bronze, t'ugátriyon, just as the prophecy foretold. That is all past now. Never mind the 'Elléniyan disk. Let the symbols be forgotten. Let the song fall silent.

  "It is time for a new beginning,
my child. Another world is rising from the ruins of the old, just as new cities are built upon their own ashes. Go into that world, Ip'emédeya, my first born, but go without me. I belong to the old world, to the age of bronze. A new metal will give your world and your age a name. Sing your own songs, now, and look to your future without me. See that you give your age a soul, t'ugátriyon."

  As she sat beside the stream, she began to sway. Ariyadná lay down on the mossy bank, her eyes clouded and sightless. "Owlé, lady Préswa," she whispered. "Hail to you. Ai, but it is quiet where you are. No man pounds his shield. No woman laments. Arét, my lord of war, you have given Meneláwo peace, at last. You sent him to the one place where you cannot set foot. I am coming, Meneláwo. Let me rest in your arms forever, beloved."