Conspiracy of the Islands (The Age of Bronze)

by Diana Gainer

  But Meneláwo's wandering mind gave Qelémak'o little satisfaction. "Ai, yes, Odushéyu was a crafty fellow, always plotting something. Did I ever tell you about the infamous chariot race? Your father competed on a festival day on my island of 'Elléniya, years ago." The graying king chuckled, spilling wine on his lap unnoticed. "Odushéyu was so sure that he would win, always boasting that the goddess At'ána would help him prevail everywhere and in everything. But he shattered his cart's fragile wheels on the uneven ground in that race and came in last of all." Meneláwo laughed heartily at the memory, to the discomfort of his guest.

  As quickly as he had smiled, the king sobered again. "The winner of that chariot race was a Tróyan pirate, as it turned out. He carried off my wánasha, across the Inner Sea." Meneláwo sighed, drinking ever more wine, hardly aware of the others' presence any more. "Odushéyu proved himself a loyal ally all through the Tróyan war, better than my own brother. Odushéyu never suggested we abandon Ariyádna. He would have stayed there, camped beside me on the Wilúsiyan plains, even if the siege had taken ten years instead of one. Ai, but twelve months was long enough. Two harvests were spoiled because of the war and there has not been enough rain to make up for the loss since. What a ransom we paid for my holy 'Elléniyan queen…." The king's head sank to his hands and Ariyádna sighed heavily beside her gray-haired husband.

  "When you left the kingdom of Wilúsiya, with its capital city in ruins, was my father with you?" Qelémak'o boldly asked, ignoring Megapént'e's restraining gesture.

  "Have you seen him since?" T'rasuméde asked helpfully, leaning forward in his chair.

  Meneláwo groaned and sat straight, rubbing his scarred side. But he did not answer immediately. "Odushéyu made many enemies in the Tróyan war. Everyone claimed that he killed Aíwaks, the Ak'áyan army's greatest champion. Agamémnon dispelled none of those rumors when he gave Odushéyu the captives that the dead man had received as his portion of the booty. That was only one of many bad decisions my brother made as overlord of the Tróyan campaign. Ai, that makes no difference now. The P'ilístas were out for blood because all the northern Ak'áyans considered Aíwaks one of their own.

  "It was not true, of course. My brother had arranged it all. But Odushéyu had to leave for home before anyone else, or one of the northerners would have killed him. I was the next one to leave Wilúsiya, sailing my ships close behind. Our fleets came together the first night, one the big island to the left of the mainland. From then on, we pushed ourselves to the limit, hopping from island to island, sailing and rowing as long as there was light. We crossed the Inner Sea in just nine days, nine, a holy number. Luck was with us that autumn. I lost no ships…at least none that left Wilúsiya with me." Meneláwo's voice trailed away to a whisper and he fell silent.

  "Uncle, please go on," Orésta urged him. "Odushéyu wintered with us here and sailed west in the spring. I remember."

  The king sighed heavily, yet again, the tears brimming in his dark eyes. "I lost many good people when the Tróyans first attacked my shores. Ai, but I lost so many more before Tróya fell, so many. Ai, only a third of my army saw Lakedaimón again. Owái, lady Diwiyána, you give but you take as well!"

  At his knees, Ariyádna swayed in her chair. Clumsily, she patted her husband's hand and stroked his hairy arm. "Beloved, we cannot mourn forever. Listen to your own words, Meneláwo. Drink and forget. Drink and forget." Kluména took this cue to refill the king's bronze cup.

  Exasperated, Qelémak'o threw up his hands. "But, what about my father?"

  Meneláwo drew himself up on his throne and clasped his queen's hand in his own big fist. He stared up at the smoke-hole above the great hearth, glancing at each of the four sooty pillars supporting the roof around it, as if counting them to make sure they were all still there. "I saw Odushéyu only once after that," Meneláwo told the young man reluctantly. "He did not have the favor of the goddess, in spite of all his bold claims. Owái, Idómeneyu was my closest friend and he, too, got little enough from supporting my cause. He had the misfortune to be banished by his own people…abandoned by every Ak'áyan kingdom…gone to 'Aidé on the point of a spear, wielded by a barbarian of a Mízriyan far away, across the Great Green Sea." He shook himself, trying to clear his thoughts. "Ai, but I know that you do not want to hear about him, hero though he was.

  "I will tell you about your father, Qelémak'o. A storm shattered Odushéyu's ships on his way home from here, the spring after Tróya fell. He lost all but one of his ships and all of his share of the Wilúsiyan loot. Most of his men drowned, but he did live to see his islands again. You must remember that, even though it was a full decade ago. Even so, your father's was a cold homecoming, as he had guessed it would be." Meneláwo fell silent a moment, nodding to himself, brooding for a long while.

  The It'ákan prince shifted impatiently in his seat. "Be still," Orésta quietly urged. "Do not speak too soon. He is coming to the point in his own way." Qelémak'o slumped unhappily and picked at the few remaining inlays of ivory and faience in the arms of his chair. The queen dozed off beside the scarred throne and the unhappy warrior king in it. Kluména stirred dreamily at the poppy-tinged wine, thinking again of the clash of bronze spear points against helmets of the same yellow metal, of the screams of the dying, and of the anguish of the survivors who had the bad luck to be taken captive.

  At length, the Lakedaimóniyan wánaks roused himself. "Ai, I must go on with the story. Queen Penelópa did not care to relinquish her hold on the throne, when her husband finally returned from the Tróyan war. Odushéyu had to set out again, divorced, dethroned, exiled by his own queen. You may recall that your father was none too popular among his neighbors. Odushéyu was a good fighter, but he was a pirate. He made too many enemies, raiding one place or another every summer."

  "Lies!" cried Qelémak'o, rising to his feet with angry fists.

  T'rasuméde, stood as well, loyally siding with Qelémak'o. "Those are fighting words for any man's son!"

  "You cannot get away with calling our king a liar!" Orésta shouted at the visitors. He and Megapént'e rose in turn, prepared to fight their guests.

  On his stony seat at the head of the room, Meneláwo nodded calmly, unaware of the passion of the young men. "Yes, Qelémak'o, your father raided the pasture lands of Mesheníya whenever old Néstor was away on a campaign. If he was not doing that, Odushéyu was sailing west to the bull country. In the ítalo lands, there are no great kings, and no fortresses of stone. It is easy to take copper and cattle and barbarian women."

  "You offend my honor with this slander!" Qelémak'o cried furiously, striding toward the king.

  Megapént'e caught the bearded visitor by the shoulder and shoved him backward. "You are a guest in this land, Qelémak'o. You must obey the laws of hospitality. To attack your host is dishonorable."

  As Megapént'e squared off against the It'ákan, Orésta, despite his slight stature, stared down the Mesheníyan prince with burning eyes. "Have you no respect for honor?" the smaller youth demanded. "Have you no areté?"

  Ducking his head with embarrassment, T'rasuméde now switched sides and joined with his hosts. The three younger men caught the It'ákan by the arms, urging Qelémak'o to return to his chair.

  "Listen to me, Qelémak'o," Orésta pleaded. "It is common knowledge that your father raided the lands of his neighbors at one time. But that was a long time ago and the Tróyan war changed everything. My father’s cause united all of Ak'áiwiya. Under Agamémnon's overlordship, every Ak'áyan land put aside its petty quarrels with its neighbors and every king joined into a single alliance."

  Megapént'e agreed, adding, "Even though Argo has a different wánaks today, here in the south, every kingdom has remained true to that alliance ever since the war. Our half-barbarian kinsmen in the north may now be at war with one another, as they always were. But P'ilístas never were civilized as we are."

  Not wanting to be left out, T'rasuméde nodded at his hosts' every word, adding, "I will not help you start a war h
ere."

  "My father was a respected warrior, a sacker of cities, not a pirate," Qelémak'o muttered angrily, but he hesitantly sat down again, just the same. "Men still say that king Odushéyu was the best mariner in all of Ak'áiwiya and an archer without peers."

  Orésta was losing patience. "That may be, but he used his skills in piratical raids. Even though he was a wánaks, he was no spearman."

  "He was just a bowman," Megapént'e continued, with open contempt. "He shot arrows from a distance rather than fighting hand to hand, like a true hero."

  "It takes as much strength to shoot an arrow as it does to thrust a spear and a good deal more skill!" Qelémak'o shouted hotly, standing again. White with fury, he shoved the broad-shouldered son of his host, knocking him over backward in his chair.

  "Archery is a coward's way of fighting!" Megapént'e cried, leaping to his feet, red-faced. The young men dissolved into a writhing mass of fists and kicking feet. Wooden chairs overturned, chipping paint from the plastered floor. Ivory inlays were knocked from the chairs' decorative carvings. Sheepskins flew in every direction. Rudely awakened from sleep or reverie, the queen and serving woman wailed and ran to clutch each other in alarm.

  With a suddenness that startled the young men, king Meneláwo leaped from the throne and fell upon the group, pummeling them all with his heavy fists. "Stop your fighting!" he bellowed, knocking the youths apart. "Not a one of you young pups has a shred of honor. Sit and I will tell you what areté really is and what is truly worth fighting for."

  The princes backed away from each other, their uneasy eyes on the wánaks. They sought out their overturned chairs and put them upright, lifting the fleeces from the floor, wiping blood from their faces. T'rasuméde nursed a sprained wrist, and Megapént'e's left eye was beginning to close. Orésta dabbed blood from his upper lip.

  But Qelémak'o remained standing. He did not quite dare to attack the older, heavier king. But the young man could not ignore the fire in his blood, either. Speaking through clenched teeth, the It'ákan prince announced, "I may be young, but I know that no man has honor if he ignores an insult to his father's name."

  Meneláwo wrapped his beefy hand about Qelémak'o's throat. "What do you want from me?" growled the wánaks. He pulled the spluttering prince's head close to his own face. "Do you want a pretty story to take home to your mother? Well then, you will have one. I saw your father in a dream. Odushéyu is held captive by one of the wild maináds. The untamed goddess keeps him on the banks of the Okéyano River that rims the plate of the world. She forces him to lie with her every night, because she finds the sight of him so enticing. There, she insists that he endure pleasures that no other mortal man has ever known. But, true husband that he is, every day Odushéyu sits on the beach and sobs a bowl full of tears for his beloved Penelópa." He threw the young man to the floor and stalked back to his throne.

  Crouched beside the throne, the wánasha wept, "Owái, my child, my poor, little child!" Her hands began to move, one lifting to the side as if drawing out a thread, the other turning an invisible spindle, spinning nothing. Kluména, staring mesmerized at the motions, mirrored them with her own trembling hands.

  Returning to his seat, the king caught his wife's hands in his and held them still. He drew Ariyádna up to her chair once more and she leaned unsteadily against the fleece-draped back of the throne. To the guests' surprise, Meneláwo raised the serving woman the same way and lightly touched her cheek.

  Shakily, Kluména returned to her post at the wine-bowl and refilled the queen's cup. "Stop your spinning, wánasha. Your child is all right. Have another cup of wine," she directed the queen in a motherly tone. In silence, every man in the room watched Ariyádna's clouded eyes as she sipped at the bitter liquid.

  "It is easy for a young man to talk of honor," Meneláwo said at last, his voice low and his anger gone. "He takes every unpleasant truth to be an insult, picks a fight over every imagined slight. The T'eshalíyan champion, Ak'illéyu, was such a man. None had heard of him before the Tróyan war, but his reputation was all he cared about. My sacred island, 'Elléniya, was attacked during a festival, an affront to the code of honor proclaimed by the great goddess, Mother Diwiyána. Every Ak'áyan king had to send an army to Wilúsiya's capital city for vengeance.

  "For the sake of areté, this Ak'illéyu vowed to sack Tróya, just like all the other kings and princes. His every deed reflected his obsession with honor. He challenged Agamémnon's overlordship when my brother acted dishonorably. When Agamémnon shamed him by taking his spear-won prize, an Assúwan woman, Ak'illéyu vowed never to fight for my brother again. This was not from spite, but only because Ak'illéyu would not follow a man without areté. When Ak'illéyu finally broke that vow, it was again for the virtue of the god Arét. How could an honorable man stand by when his brother Ak'áyans were slaughtered in untold numbers? Especially, how he could not avenge his own kinsman's death?"

  As Meneláwo spoke, the young men nodded and muttered their approval. Yes, the great warrior, Ak'illéyu, had been an honorable man. Everyone said so. No one could speak of the Tróyan war without praising Ak'illéyu's name, P'ilísta though he was.

  Lakedaimón's wánaks rubbed his heavy eyes. "Ai, but when Ak'illéyu avenged his foster brother's death, he forgot all about areté. Ak'illéyu dragged the corpse of his enemy in the dust and kept the body from its kinsmen, preventing the man's burial for an indecently long period. He slaughtered men at the funeral, too, not just animals. It was an atrocity, a sacrilegious offering that no god could accept. When it came time for Ak'illéyu to die, his own corpse was treated just as dishonorably as he had once treated his enemy's."

  "Yes, but Ak'illéyu was hardly more than a barbarian," Qelémak'o snapped, impatient with the story. "No one expects those northern P'ilístas to understand true areté. But my father was different. He was no feather-headed northerner! He was a Zeugelo, a southerner. He committed no evil crimes in the Tróyan war."

  Meneláwo sat musing on the young man's face for a while. "Odushéyu went with me to Tróya immediately after the attack on my holy island," the wánaks went on gloomily, as if he had not heard the prince. "It was a wealthy city in those days. The walls were thick, the gates well guarded. Tróya could only be taken by siege, we realized. That was our plan, from the beginning. But the P'ilístas complained that such a strategy was not honorable. A true warrior fights, they told us. He does not sit around, spinning like a woman, waiting for the gods to set events in their courses."

  "That is right," muttered Qelémak'o.

  Meneláwo continued with a sigh. "Ai, but if we had shot all our arrows against those gates of oak and broken every spear on Tróya's walls of stone, what then? Would Ak'áiwiya have welcomed us back empty-handed? Would our sons have remembered our defeat with pride, praising their fathers' honor, just because we fought bravely?"

  "No, wánaks, to leave without the wánasha would have been dishonorable," Qelémak'o admitted.

  Ignoring his young guest, the king continued in a low and unhappy voice. "So, areté demanded that we go to Tróya and honor commanded us to remain there until the citadel fell, no matter what. But, after all that talk of honor, what happened when we finally entered Tróya's gates? Aíwaks was the army's greatest champion – but he raped a Tróyan priestess in the very sanctuary of her holiest goddess. That was no act of areté. Great Ak'illéyu's own son killed the Tróyan king upon the very horns of the altar, in another sacred place. Was that honorable? Would divine Arét shed blood in a place of sanctuary?"

  Qelémak'o answered quickly. "No, wánaks, those actions were atrocities. They were sacrilegious. But those were northern Ak'áyans who committed those crimes, and I remind you again, my father was no P'ilísta…"

  Meneláwo interrupted him. "Good men died in that war, hundreds of them. We lost just as many to disease and as many again to rotting wounds. There is no glory in watching your limbs turn black, no areté in writhing on your bed with fever. 'War is the only fit occupation of a high-bo
rn man,' you say. Ai, you young men talk too easily of war and honor, never suspecting what fate may await you. If a man of any rank, high or low, wants to remain strong and healthy, he must leave war alone."

  He stroked his wife's pale hands, now resting quietly on the arm of his throne. "And tell me, boy, what about the souls of those excellent men who died at sea, those whose bodies were never found? Ariyádna's own brothers suffered that most miserable of fates. We could not bury the princes' bodies or even burn them, even though they were the best of men. No, those two honorable spirits are condemned to wander forever, thirsting always, through no fault of their own.

  "Qelémak'o, you have no idea what a bitter thing is areté. I devoted my life to obtaining it, as a royal son of the Great King, Atréyu. But it has always eluded me. Even now, I face a hard choice. My daughter's husband is battling the Qoyotíyans. So now, should I protect my dead brother's honor and support his grand alliance? Should I send troops to fight alongside Qoyotíya, and take sides against T'eshalíya? Or should I side with prince Púrwo, as my daughter's honor says I must, and make war on Qoyotíya alongside T'eshalíya? An honorable man strikes his brother's enemies. But how could a man be so dishonorable as to turn against his own daughter?"

  Orésta clapped his hands to his head, covering his ears and shuddering. "His own daughter," he whispered, the words burning his tongue.

  "Father," began Megapént'e, distressed at his cousin's words. "Please stop."

  Meneláwo leaned back and gazed thoughtfully at the young men. "Areté is a sword, a noble instrument but with two cutting edges. It is no guarantee of a long and prosperous life or even of a good death. Living means making difficult decisions. Blindly following the code of areté will not make those choices any easier."