by Diana Gainer
T'érsite chuckled. "Maybe Agamémnon should have another dream, this one about eating by the hearths of our own homes. He seems to think we can all live on bronze when we get back to Ak'áiwiya. Idé, a man needs something a little easier to chew!"
"If we get back to Ak'áiwiya, you mean," St'énelo growsed. "I killed a man with blue eyes in the last battle, a T'rákiyan I think. He looked right at me when I ran him through with my spear." He shivered in the hot air and made the sign of the Evil Eye, his middle and ring fingers pressed to his palm, his thumb, index finger and small finger pointed away from his body. "Pale eyes are a bad sign."
T'érsite grunted. "Díwo must have been holding back the sun's chariot. This day is twice as long as any that I remember."
"No, look," St'énelo argued, more animated than before. "Here comes the moon. Do you see it there? There, I tell you, that sliver of white on the horizon. We can sit here in safety a bit longer. The battle will be over in a moment."
T'érsite snorted. "You are assuming that someone is in charge out here, and that we have a king with a bit of sense. Agamémnon might call for an end to the fighting. But who knows whether Ak'illéyu will stop. And if he keeps fighting, the other P'ilístas will not quit, either. For that matter, we do not know whether the Lúkiyans care enough about custom to put away their spears."
"Ai," his companion exclaimed quietly. "Look, out there in the harbor." In the distance, barely visible against the pale, rising moon, they could see more ships, letting down their sails. These longboats were larger than the small crafts that had earlier brought provisions from the nearby islands. Longer and broader, they lacked the high posts at the bow and stern that characterized the Ak'áyan ships sitting at anchor in the deep water. The newcomers' vessels had many oars, perhaps as many as fifty. "Reinforcements," St'énelo breathed.
"Yes, but for which side?" T'érsite asked. "Are they allies of Agamémnon or of Alakshándu?"
CHAPTER FIVE
QALKI
Qálki had maintained his perch on top of the earthen rampart, beside the gate. The battle raged on, despite his prophecies, moving ever further from where the prophet sat. Captive women and noncombatants joined the seer on the wall to watch the unfolding action, shaking their heads when the sun set and still the Ak'áyan warriors did not return to camp. Spying the black ships sailing into Tróya's harbor, Qálki began to shout again. "Look, Ak'áyans, your doom is coming from the sea! Poseidáon has heard the pleas of his children. Here come men from the great empire of Mízriya, semi-divine warriors who rule the southern half of the world. They come from the birthplace of the sun on the earth's rim. These ships set sail from the river Okéyano that circles the plate of this world. Can you see their skins, burned black from being so close to the heavenly chariot? They are the purest of men, their mortal parts burned away by the holy heat. With the strength of dáimons they will take up arms against the sons of Diwiyána. Assúwa is saved! Ak'áiwiya is lost!"
All the surviving warriors south of the Sqámandro River had lowered their weapons by the time the bony seer finished his speech. Speaking to each other in low voices, they broke into two parties, the larger group heading back to the encampment, the rest moving north toward the city. Across the river with the second group went the word that reinforcements had come for the besieged citadel.
All those Ak'áyans north of the river, except for Ak'illéyu's T'eshalíyans and a few Lakedaimóniyans around Meneláwo, began to fall back on the muddy riverbank. Most of the remaining Wilúsiyans and Lúkiyans abandoned the field as well. Only a few of their officers rallied with prince Paqúr, still thrusting their blood-darkened spears against the Ak'áyan shields.
Odushéyu and Idómeneyu sought out their overlord. "Call off the combat," the Kep'túriyan leader urged. "It is too dark to tell for sure, but what the men are saying about reinforcements for our enemies could be true. Those ships are Kanaqániyan."
Odushéyu agreed, adding, "The Mízriyans never cross the Great Green Sea in their own longboats. They always buy ships from Kanaqán for travel beyond their single river."
To the surprise of the island kings, Agamémnon was delighted. "From Kanaqán, are they? Before I left Mukénai, I sent a message to the island of Alásiya," he told them. "I promised a large share of Wilúsiyan bronze to any professional soldier, from that island or from the mainland of Kanaqán, who would come to Assúwa and fight for my cause. These ships mean reinforcements for us, I tell you, and certain doom for Alakshándu's city. I would not be surprised if Qálki were the one who started this rumor. The men should know by now not to listen to that skinny charlatan."
However, to the chagrin of the Argive wánaks, the men who rowed to shore did not approach the earth-walled camp. Instead, they marched toward the earthquake-battered citadel, lighted torches in their hands. "By the grim dog of 'Aidé!" Agamémnon cursed, throwing down his bronze-rimmed shield in disgust. "I was sure I would have Tróya before another day dawned." He raised his spear over his head, mid-haft, and called out for the men to end the day's battle. Further from the river, Ainyáh was doing the same, but with a lighter heart.
Stroking his bushy beard in thought, Odushéyu suggested, "We could still take the fortress by cunning, if you are so inclined, Agamémnon. We could do it tonight, too. Choose your best warriors, only those who are not wounded. Have the men strip themselves and carry only a sword and shield, so that they will be able to travel quietly. We can follow the Assúwans back to the city without them knowing. The darkness will hide us from their sight and the sound of their own talk and footsteps will cover what little noise we make."
"Only a few of us would likely make it through the gates," Idómeneyu argued, shaking his gray-streaked head. "The Wilúsiyans would discover us too soon and close the big doors. Those Ak'áyans trapped inside would be quickly slaughtered and those of us still outside would be driven off by the watchmen's arrows."
The It'ákan was not discouraged by such talk. "Ai, it would not be as hopeless as that, Idómeneyu. I would be willing to bet that the earthquake shook down a fair amount of brick from the top of the walls and towers. There might even be enough for us to stack together and build a kind of ramp on the outside. At least some of the men could climb the walls that way, I believe. As for those inside, we just have to choose the right men. Suppose we have Ak'illéyu lead that group. He is a wild man! We were complaining about that earlier today. Now let us put him to good use. Even if the Tróyans do kill him, he could easily take down ten of our enemies first. And do not forget Diwoméde. That boy has turned out to be another of those frenzied warriors our grandfathers spoke of. He could go with the T'eshalíyan. We might as well take advantage of his strength now. He is sure to die of that wound in his foot before long."
Agamémnon considered the idea. "Those of us storming the walls would probably face more than arrows, though," he frowned.
"Yes," Idómeneyu responded quickly. "We would be showered with stones and hot oil, too. And there is no glory in dying slowly from burns. It takes a large force to storm a walled city, many more warriors than we have left." Disappointed and frustrated, they turned toward the south in the pale moonlight.
Ak'illéyu's men were among the last Ak'áyans to return to camp. They came on slow feet, complaining of the faithlessness of the gods. "The sun's chariot left the battlefield too soon," Automédon loudly told his wánaks. "We could have driven the Assúwans all the way back to the citadel, if the daylight had not failed us. Ai, Díwo betrayed our trust."
T'érsite, passing by with Diwoméde leaning heavily on his arm, rolled his eyes at the comment. Beneath his breath the foot soldier grumbled, "If those blood-thirsty T'eshalíyans had been fighting with us all this time, instead of sulking in their huts, the war would have been over by now."
Groaning at each painful step, Diwoméde said, "Do not pay any attention to what Automédon says. Qasiléyus have to talk that way when their wánaktes are overly eager for combat. He just does not want Ak'illéyu to accuse him of b
eing soft."
The lesser ranked foot soldier looked at Diwoméde in surprise. "I suppose you are right," T'érsite said. He stopped and bent low. "Here, climb on my back. I will carry you the rest of the way." The younger man gratefully wrapped his arms around T'érsite's neck and the foot soldier lifted the qasiléyu's legs. "You need a chariot," T'érsite puffed.
"I need the poppy," the young man moaned, drawing his aching sword arm close to his side.
aaa
When the earth finished quaking, Alakshándu stood with difficulty, beside the bed in his chamber. He crept toward the doorway and to the courtyard beyond. From the top of its low wall, high on Tróya's hill, he could see the tumult within his citadel's walls and on part of the plain outside. "What is this? What has happened?" he asked, although no one was near enough to answer. "A battle? Without my consent? Ai, what has Wilúsiya come to?"
"Tróya is falling!" queen Eqépa shrieked, running from the palace to fall on her knees behind her husband. She raised imploring hands to the sky, calling, "Father Poseidáon, have mercy! Pity us, Mother Dáwan!"
The king watched in silent shock and disbelief as the wooden roofs of Tróya's fine houses blazed. The small huts of the potters and shepherds, crammed together in the city's wide streets, were quickly consumed. Embers tossed by the ever-blowing winds fell upon the trapped populace. Screaming women with babies in their arms ran in every direction, dragging older children by the hand. They could not leave the battered city for fear of the Ak'áyans. But they dared not sit quietly in their homes while Tróya fell in on them. So they rushed through the narrow pathways and wailed and died under falling bricks and timbers.
"The gods have sacked Tróya, without even opening her gates," the white-haired king gasped, turning from one dreadful view to another.
Outside the walls, the old man could just make out the forms of the Assúwan warriors beginning to return from the banks of the Sqámandro River. "Did I only dream of a truce?" he asked of no one in particular. "How has the war begun again without my knowledge?"
At his feet, the queen wept, "Apúluno, lord of the gates, I beg of you, shoot the Ak'áyans with your arrows of plague or they will break open your people's city. Save us, Apúluno! I curse all Ak'áiwiya in your name. Let them die, all of them, here and across the sea, as well as their little children and all their cattle. Slaughter them all, I beg of you."
Alakshándu scanned the landscape, gripping the robes at his chest. A heavy, unseen hand had him in its clutches. It was a struggle for him to breathe. A crushing pain spread to his chin and he swayed on the courtyard wall. As his wife caught his hand to help him down, the king spied torches coming toward Tróya from the western shore of the Inner Sea. He stared without comprehension at first, ignoring Eqépa's calls for him to step down from the battlements. Then a cry rose from the shaken watchmen on the towers. Reinforcements! This, at least, was something concrete, something Alakshándu knew how to deal with.
"Open the gates!" the aging king shouted to the men milling below the palace walls. "Keep them open until the last of our troops come through, but watch carefully and bolt the gates behind them. Do not let any Ak'áyans through or we will have a massacre." He sat heavily on the courtyard's cool paving stones, the breath whistling with the effort it took him to fill his lungs.
As the men moved to do his bidding, the king added in a whisper, "And post guards. The Ak'áyans may try to climb the walls." The tumbled piles of bricks were hidden from the king's view in the gloom, but he knew they would be there.
Eqépa was galvanized into action. She called for servants and for guardsmen, repeating her husband's orders and adding her own. "Carry rocks to the towers, to throw down on the Ak'áyans," she commanded, regaining her composure. "Assemble the women and old men, if you have to. Man every section of wall. Heat oil and water and prepare to pour them on the attackers. Everyone will have to fight tonight, even the children! Tróya must not fall!"
The surviving inhabitants of the fortress, old and young, men and women, rushed about beneath the shaken walls to do as their rulers ordered. A frantic knot of older girls and women gathered about the deep well that had been dug, long ago, inside the tower that guarded the main gate. In their hurry, they knocked each other down, spilling water from the tall jars they carried on their heads. Old men struck out in frustration with bricks in their arms, bruising the children at their feet. Tears flowed and screams rose from every street and building. But the people continued with their tasks, with the strength of desperation.
Tushrátta was the first to return to the city from the battlefield. Angrily, he announced to anyone who cared to listen, "I am taking my Lúkiyans home at dawn. Fight on, if you have the hearts to do so. Or surrender yourselves to the Ak'áyans. We do not care. You sheep abandoned our noble king today! Tomorrow we abandon yours to his fate. May Tarqún make it an evil one!" With his felt-capped warriors, he withdrew to the open marketplace where he and his men found their tents burned to cinders, along with the surrounding houses of the common folk.
When Paqúr and Ainyáh reached the damaged walls, they had equally dismal news for their lord Alakshándu and his despairing people. Lupákki was dead, another prince felled by Ak'illéyu's pitiless bronze. Renewed wails and laments broke out among the high-born folk and the low. As other warriors failed to appear, the din only increased.
Eqépa was on the point of throwing herself from the walls. But with her royal son-in-law came another, very different message. "The ships in the harbor have anchored and the visitors have come ashore, my lord Alakshándu. They are warriors from Mízriya and they say they are here at the request of our own emperor!"
The king shuddered from head to toe, laughing and weeping at the same time. He clapped his hands to his head, gripping his thinning hair. Eqépa embraced her husband and touched a respectful hand to her heart, her brow, and the sky, saluting the gods. "Bring them to the mégaron, Ainyáh," the queen ordered. The king, pale and sweating, silently, breathlessly nodded, behind her. "We will have a feast in their honor,” the diminutive woman went on officiously. “Tell my son, Paqúr, that he must open the last of the storage jars, personally. See that none of our stores have been stolen. Have all our guests taken to the throne room and have the serving women ply them with the finest wine that Paqúr can locate. We will have bread and chick-pea soup, dried figs, and do find a bit of meat, either water bird or fish, and see that it is cooked well in olive oil. Let there be rejoicing in Tróya tonight! Qáttushli, our wise and merciful overlord, has sent us help at last!"
aaa
Kréyusa met Ainyáh with tears of joy when he returned to the palace. The royal buildings, being high on the hill, had suffered considerably less damage than the lower town. The fires that had so devastated the homes of the common folk did not pass the courtyard to endanger the roofs of the palace. The prevailing winds blew from the sea that day, too, affording the western quarter of the city protection, even as they doomed the greater part of the eastern section. Tróya's mercenary prince was greatly relieved to see that his own family was safe, having suffered nothing worse than bruises and minor burns.
The warrior's royal wife covered his dirty face and blood-stained hands with kisses, for she had thought him dead. Sending the servants away, she bathed him herself in what water she could get, washing away the thick dust that was pasted to his flesh with dried blood. With a bit of unspun wool, she gently oiled his wounds, a long scrape on one thigh, a series of smaller cuts on his sword arm, a wide patch of skin torn from one cheek where a spear shaft had struck him, and countless lesser bruises and scratches. She kissed each injury, thanking Dáwan and Poseidáon for his life.
Her fervor and the warmth of her hands upon his body aroused him. He would not allow her to finish drying him, but, still dripping, took his wife in his arms and carried her to their bed. She was as filled with desire as he was. She could not wait to remove all her garments before she wrapped her legs around him. The weight of his body had never been more
welcome to her, having thought she would never feel it again. The scent of her hair had never seemed sweeter to him, wondering how many more times he might breathe it in.
At last they rested, lying on their sides, Kréyusa's back against Ainyáh's chest, his right arm under her head, his left over her warm body. The king would be holding an assembly in the throne room, he knew. Aching with fatigue, comfortable in Kréyusa's warm shadow, he thought to himself, 'Let them make their decisions without me this time.' The king's daughter clasped his hand in both of hers, pressing it to her full breasts.
"Like a sword in its scabbard we fit together, Kréyusa," Ainyáh whispered.
She smiled, content with his warmth and his hairy chest against her back. "That we do," she agreed. The smile on her lips faded and she sighed. "Owái, beloved, when I heard that you had gone out with Sharpaduwánna today, I thought I had lost you. I went to see Andrómak'e this morning, you see, and I found her crying over her loom. I tried to comfort her, reminding her that while she still had life she had hope. But she only wept that much harder. She said that when Qántili died, she lost her very life. Now her son is an orphan and she is alone in the world. Ai, I could see myself in her place and I was so afraid."