Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze)

by Diana Gainer

  Ainyáh laughed, nearly spilling his porridge. The other princes and princesses turned to look at the couple. "Is this something that Wilúsiyan women do often?" the warrior asked, incredulous.

  "Do not laugh," Kréyusa scolded quietly, but not terribly displeased for all that. "You are my life. When I am with you, I have everything that a woman could ask for. When you are in my arms, I know that the goddess has given me all her blessings, a home with strong walls, a husband with a brave heart, and a healthy child on my lap. But when you are away from me, I am so afraid that all these good things will slip through my fingers like so much sand. I went to the altar this morning, too, and poured wine and oil to the Divine Horse. I asked Poseidáon to run with your team today."

  The earth shivered and Kréyusa's bright smile disappeared for a moment, replaced by anxiety. She reached for her husband. Ainyáh, too, was alarmed, and he waited in silence, clasping his wife's hands. The shaking stopped and Kréyusa's fear dissipated. "The god heard me," she gasped. Ainyáh drew her toward him for a kiss, and ate his meal with a smile, confident that she was right.

  aaa

  Across the sea, the land of Argo celebrated the autumn sowing of the grain with little ceremony. Klutaimnéstra sat upon Mukénai's throne in her flounced skirt of many colors and a blue bodice that left her pendulous breasts bare. At her right side, Aígist'o stood quietly, draped from chin to toes in priestly robes of wool. Beneath smoke-darkened frescoes in peeling paint, the wánasha spoke to a circle of aging men gathered around the great hearth of the mégaron.

  "I have received a letter from my cousin in It'áka, the wánasha Penelópa," she announced, holding high a wooden tablet coated with wax. "She supports our cause. Her people have sailed from It'áka and landed on Mesheníya's shores, since Néstor's aging wife refused to join us. Penelópa now commands Mesheníya's Further Province. On the Kep'túriyan throne, queen Médeya has finally extended her power into the eastern half of the island. She, too, sides with us. Since I control the fortunes of both Argo and Lakedaimón, our impoverished neighbors in Arkadíya and Enwáli will not oppose us. So, the south is united under my command, for all intents and purposes. But I knew that you would not lightly turn against my husband, since you all took oaths of loyalty to him, before he left for the east. I knew I had to do something to demonstrate clearly that the gods are on my side. So I have asked a northern land to join our alliance, too, and that is Attika."

  The gray-bearded men in warriors' dress stirred on the plaster benches that lined the walls of the mégaron. "Attika has been opposed to Argo for generations," one marveled aloud. "I never thought I would live to see the day that king Erékt'eyu would sign a treaty with Argo!"

  Aígist'o raised his hands. "Peace, Kapanéyu. To be sure, Erékt'eyu has not agreed to drop his feud with us. But he is old and feeble. He cannot live much longer. His daughter, Kt'oníya, is a widow. She will be the Attikan monarch when her father dies."

  "So," Klutaimnéstra broke in. "All of the neighboring kingdoms are with us. We have nothing to fear."

  "Nothing to fear from the men," the outspoken elder corrected her. "But what do the gods portend? We are here to listen to your plans for the future, wánasha. All of us came because we are concerned about the continuing drought and the length of time the Assúwan war has lasted. Argo's problems have led us to wonder whether king Agamémnon is guilty of some wrongdoing. But, until we learn what he might have done to turn the gods against us, we will not support your plans to depose him. Argo has prospered under his rule, my lady, as it did under his father, Atréyu, before him. Clearly, the gods adored the wánaks in the past. What could he have done that was so unforgivable that Díwo and Diwiyána both have become our enemies?"

  Klutaimnéstra stood. "I will tell you what Agamémnon has done. You know that he often went hunting without offering sacrifice to Artémito first."

  "That is a little thing," Kapanéyu said deprecatingly.

  "It may seem so to you," Aígist'o argued, stepping forward beside the heavy-set queen. "But when Agamémnon gathered his army in Qoyotíya, the lady Artémito and her maináds kept the wind blowing against his ships and shot their invisible arrows of pestilence into his men. Clearly, the untamed goddess did not think the king's oversight was a little thing. Of course, the army consulted their seer on the matter. A generous offering to the offended deity was the only solution, an expiatory sacrifice."

  "Agamémnon can no longer be Argo's wánaks," Klutaimnéstra cried, color rising in her painted cheeks. "His crime in Qoyotíya was unspeakable. He murdered his own daughter, the princess Ip'emédeya, killed her with his own hand! For this he must die!"

  Again, the elder warriors stirred, uttering cries of shock and of fear. Kapanéyu stood, stroking his white beard. "I do not wish to offend you, wánasha," he said, speaking slowly and carefully. "But if a seer calls for a sacrifice, even of a human, the pious man obeys."

  "Ai, but if a child had to die to save my sister, why did it have to be one of mine?" the angry woman responded. "Why not one of Agamémnon's many bastards? Think, Kapanéyu, suppose that Meneláwo had been captured in war and held by the enemy in bondage. Would I kill my own son, Orésta, to get my sister's husband back? The very idea is absurd!"

  Calmly, Kapanéyu answered, "I have noticed that most people are willing to accept the idea of human sacrifice in an emergency. But the idea is acceptable only so long as the victim is not one of their own kinsmen. If the army's seer demanded your daughter, then the princess Ip'emédeya had to die. It was unfortunate, but it was fate."

  The Argive queen cried out and clasped her plump hands over her heart. "Ai, that is what I told my daughter! Those were my very words: 'It is fate.' But was it really necessary? We have all known of human sacrifice, but only when the life of a nation depends upon appeasing the gods. Agamémnon gave our daughter's life for a profane purpose, to gain a fair wind to sail to Tróya. Do you not see? He did not have to go with his army and he should not have gone, if that was the price he had to pay for it. Meneláwo could have led Ak'áiwiya as well as his brother. No, Agamémnon sacrificed his child, not for any noble cause, but to base ambition. Such a man cannot be allowed to sit on the throne of Argo, a man without honor, without respect for the ways of our ancestors. As Argo is the most powerful state in Ak'áiwiya, the sins of the Argives' king will bring divine wrath down upon all the Ak'áyans, unless we act."

  Now the elders were quiet, looking at each other and agreeing with solemn nods.

  Klutaimnéstra lifted her hands toward the heavens. Beside her, Aígist'o stood in the same posture of worship. The wánasha chanted, "O Lady Diwiyána, mother of the gods, we are your loyal children, your faithful vassals. It is your bidding we follow, your laws we respect. We swear our oaths to you by the River Stuks, the boundary of your daughter's realm. Agamémnon will not rule again in Argo, for he has offended you. Nor will any king in Ak'áiwiya retain his throne if he remains loyal to this blasphemous overlord. Agamémnon's companions are cursed, for his crime is theirs as well. Odushéyu will not return to It'áka. Néstor will not retake Mesheníya. Idómeneyu is banished from Kep'túr."

  The elders stood, raising their hands to their hearts, their foreheads, and the sky. "Owlé, Mother Diwiyána!" they cried. "Agamémnon must not rule again."

  aaa

  Néstor watched the advancing preparations for battle with deepening anxiety. To his son, the old king worried that Mesheníya had lost prestige in the long conflict. "Agamémnon's section of camp has grown, whether through bribes and threats, or through diplomacy, I cannot say. Odushéyu has shored up his small force by building on fear and telling outrageous lies. Mesheníya's contingent has lost many men to both. This is not the way I meant this campaign to turn out."

  "I know what you mean, Father," Antílok'o answered. "This kind of disloyalty means nothing to Meneláwo. If his Lakedaimóniyans fight alongside Agamémnon or Odushéyu, Meneláwo is not troubled. All he cares about is his infernal 'Elléniyan woman. So long as he
gets her back, he is content to see Lakedaimón impoverished and weakened, even dishonored."

  His father nodded. "But we cannot stand by in the same way."

  "What can we do?" Antílok'o asked. "Agamémnon is our ally, as is Odushéyu. You cannot be thinking of making war on them and joining the Tróyans."

  Néstor's lined face wrinkled in a half smile. "No, my son, I will not make war on Argo or It'áka, at least, not until Tróya has fallen. But I can compete with them in other ways. My reputation is for wisdom and that is what I will use to draw men to me. Talk to the men at their hearths, my son. Remind them that Mesheníya's king is renowned for his strategy. Agamémnon knows only when to send the army forward to fight, not how to fight effectively. Do you realize what he and Odushéyu have been doing? They are pushing all the Ak'áyans to begin working together as a unit and not as individual warriors. Only by combining all our strengths, they say, will we be able to bring Wilúsiya to her knees."

  "But that is not right, is it, father?" Antílok'o asked. He was no longer as certain as he had once been. "If it were, there would be no reason for any kingdom to follow a wánaks other than Agamémnon."

  Néstor's eyes gleamed. "Exactly!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands to his thighs. "Now you see his true intent. He does not care about Tróya or his brother's wife, or Ak'áiwiya's honor. What he wants is power, the status of emperor of the Ak'áyans. We must stop him. I do not know about the island kings, but as for me, I have no intention of becoming a vassal king like Alakshándu. At all costs, we must defeat his plan. Lead our loyal Mesheníyans today, my son. I am too old to fight without a chariot, so I will stay in camp and guard the captives. But remember what we talked about this morning. And when the day's battle is over, I will help you begin to sow dissension among the Ak'áyans."

  aaa

  When morning dawned, Bendisiléya led her pale-skinned warriors in a chanting dance around their small encampment. With each circuit, their voices grew louder and their chant was interspersed with cries imitating those of carnivorous animals. The Mar-Yandúns howled like wolves and roared like bears, their queen mimicking the screeching of the eagle. The pace of their dance quickened, the pounding of their feet on the ground rousing their small horses to struggle against the fetters that bound them. With drums made of hollowed tree limbs stretched with hide, they added to the driving rhythm. Even the war-weary Tróyans found their pulses speeding to that beat. As soon as the sun's upper rim cleared the tops of the eastern mountains, the blue-eyed northern warriors leaped onto the bare backs of their ponies and rode toward the Sqámandro River, to the astonishment of ally and foe alike. They howled and roared their strange cries as they approached the river, brandishing lightweight javelins over their heads.

  Close behind Bendisiléya's riders, the longbowmen from Mízriya lined up. Rows of archers marched southward in neat rows, Amusís riding in a brightly painted chariot in their midst. Behind this wall of strong and healthy bodies, the remaining Wilúsiyans formed their own, more ragged lines.

  The sons of Diwiyána waded across the dwindling waters of the river and drew up to meet their enemies a little north of the banks. Odushéyu led the center of the line with his spearmen in close rank. On either side of the island king marched other foot-soldiers, P'ilístas and Zeugelátes intermixed, their ethnic and national differences largely forgotten. Behind them all came the main body of archers under Idómeneyu's leadership. Without chariots, the lawagétas from north and south were indistinguishable from their men. In their captured gear, northerners differed little from southerners. The old hatreds of their native kingdoms were forgotten in this new drive to extinguish Tróya. But, despite the impression Odushéyu had made on them all, more clearly than ever, Agamémnon was their common overlord. His armor alone had been cleaned and polished with oil till it shone. More men surrounded him than followed any other king. His booming voice rose above all others, calling, "Díwo!" and repeating the war cry, "Alalá!"

  There was no pause in the march that day, no hesitation of opposing lines before the first clash of bronze weapons. Warriors streamed from Tróya's gate and from the Ak'áyan camp and rushed to meet each other at once. Roused to near hysteria, Bendisiléya's Mar-Yandúns rode down on the sons of Diwiyána, hurling their spears into Odushéyu's line. The wild men frothed at the mouth, screamed wild, wordless cries, and, when drawn up in uneven lines, some gnawed on the edges of their shields. They truly seemed to be maináds, deities of untamed nature. To the opium-clouded eyes of their enemies, the unfamiliar pairing of man on horseback seemed a single creature. But the It'ákan's followers were more than equal to the assault. The careful rows of shield overlapping shield soon dispersed. But, filled with the spirit of the poppy, fortified by magic formulas, they fought like maddened bulls, charging forward even when mortally wounded, killing even while they were dying. They surrounded the horsemen as they passed, stabbing the wide bodies of the animals and bringing them to the earth.

  The Káushans under Amusís, on the other hand, found themselves unable to use their vaunted skill to full effect. Their commander called out to his allies to stand back from the Ak'áyans and let the bowmen do their work first. But neither Bendisiléya's horsemen nor Paqúr's spearmen listened. Once the Assúwans and Ak'áyans were intermingled, the southern archers could do little more than defend themselves against attack.

  Hard-pressed by Wilúsiyan spearmen on their eastern flank, the Mesheníyans under Antílok'o began to retreat almost immediately. But Odushéyu's battle-hardened islanders, shoring up their courage by touching the backs of their hands to the magic amulets at their necks, prevented a rout. The It'ákan's native foot-soldiers were as unable to maintain their wall of interlocking shields as the island king's more recent recruits. Still, they gave their enemies a fight over every inch of ground. Agamémnon patrolled the back of his army, continually urging the men forward and not backward, occasionally using his sword against one of his own number to impress his command upon the others.

  Even without the help of the Assúwan flower’s bitter nectar, Ak'illéyu's fervor for battle matched that of Bendisiléya's wild horsemen. The P'ilísta prince charged repeatedly into the Mar-Yandún ranks, even when the rest of his T'eshalíyans held back. Surrounded by the supposed dáimons, Ak'illéyu continued to thrust with his spear and press forward, unaware of his vulnerability.

  In the confusion of the battle, he came upon Bendisiléya herself, as she sat upon her stiff-maned horse. Her right arm raised a spear aloft and she shouted in her strange, wild tongue, unaware of the enemy at her feet. Ak'illéyu hurled his dagger at her, hitting her just below the exposed armpit. He leaped onto the little horse's back, behind her, and the animal reared. The wounded woman fell backward, knocking Ak'illéyu to the earth with her. The prince scrambled to his feet and the queen tried to rise as well, before her people could come up around her. Grasping the long braid of gray hair that fell down her back, Ak'illéyu jerked her head forward. But before he could behead her, a pair of longbow men came upon them, in their white kilts and leather aprons. The T'eshalíyan was forced to fight for his own life and he flung the northern woman to the ground still alive. A small cry escaped her lips when she struck the earth, but she did not die immediately. Sightless, gray eyes stared up at a grim sky of the same color. Blue lips mouthed the names of the deities of her distant, northern realm. "Kábeiro," she whispered, "Dánu…"

  Unaware of their leader's mortal injury, the Mar-Yandúns continued to fight until the sun reached the peak of the sky's bowl. The ardor of her fighters cooled in the heat of the day and they realized that Bendisiléya's high-pitched scree no longer soared above the plain. Individual horsemen made their way out of the press of the fighting. Leaving their mounts, they climbed the oak tree below Tróya's entrance ramp. One after another barbarian warrior surveyed the plain, seeking Bendisiléya. Unable to sight their queen, only a few of the riders returned to the fight, and those who did came with their fervor dampened. As if comprehension of the fact that
they were leaderless came upon them all at once, in a mass they whirled around and fled for the open gates of Tróya. Flying hooves devoured the plain. Many died in the first moments of that flight, men and horses alike. The war-weary Assúwans went after them.

  Agamémnon roared out his commands, urging his army to fall upon their enemies, to cut them to pieces and end the war right then. But Amusís's forces covered the disorderly retreat, each man keeping his shield close to his fellow countryman's, with cries of "Saqmít!" to strengthen his resolve. Although the Mízriyans followed their allies into the citadel, they lost few men on the way. It was almost as if they had spied upon the It’ákan king’s practices, some of the islanders’ men whispered to one another, in awe.

  aaa

  At the shaken walls of Tróya, the pursuing Ak'áyans were stopped in their pursuit by torrents of hot oil and arrows. Though wave after wave of opium-crazed P'ilístas and Zeugelátes tried to storm the citadel, the defenders on the heights beat them back, again and again. Every citizen of Tróya aided in the fight, the older boys hurling stones from their slings, old men shooting arrows, and smaller children fetching more from the palace storerooms. Grown women carried oil and water up the hastily repaired staircases, to heat on crude hearths of brick. Even the men who had been wounded in earlier battles did their duty, pouring hot liquids down on the Ak'áyans swarming over the fallen masonry below.