by Diana Gainer
Dáuniya sat up, avoiding his eyes. Drawing her knees to her chest, she spoke to the far wall. "If I do not, I have reason. Some day, you will find a free woman, a high-born wife, of your own nation. On that day, you will forget all about me. I do not care to have my heart wounded."
Diwoméde sat and put his arms around her. "Lie down, Dáuniya," he urged her, speaking softly. "Look at me." With a hand on her chin, he turned her face to his. Her lips trembled, but her eyes were clear and hard. "Dáuniya, I will not tell you lies. I am a qasiléyu. Some day, I must take a high-born wife, just as you say." He resisted when she tried to look away again. "But I will never forget you."
"You will," she argued with clenched teeth, closing her eyes.
"No, I promise. I swear it on my hearth. I will always keep you close by and I will visit you as often as I can, in the night."
Tears welled up in Dáuniya's eyes as she met his gaze. Bitterly, she said, "Let my breasts sag a little, let the fat disappear from my bones, my hair gray a bit, and you will banish me from your side."
"Idé, you ungrateful cow, do you mean to call me a liar?" Diwoméde cried angrily, rising on an elbow. "I ought to send you to the queen's flax fields! Then you would have good reason to complain."
Dáuniya was unafraid. Placing her hands on her hips, she boldly asked, "Ai, and who would take care of you then? Who would rub your aching feet with oil? Who would mate with you on her knees, as if she were a beast, to spare your injured arm?" As she spoke, she moved to the foot of the bed and took his bad foot in her lap.
Diwoméde watched, frowning, as she ran warm hands over the massive scars, where he had once had toes. "Ai, Dáuniya," he sighed, his anger evaporating. "When I came back here from At'énai, I thought I had come home to die. You healed my foot and saved my life." He squeezed his eyes shut and, groaning, pulled his foot from her hands. "Owái, when I think of the day Menést'eyu cut off my toes, the sweat comes out on my back." He turned to his stomach and buried his face in the fleeces.
Dáuniya walked on her knees to sit closer to his head. She rubbed his right arm and shoulder, kneading the scarred flesh with both hands. "When will it stop giving me pain?" Diwoméde asked the woman, through moans of pleasure. "It has been ten years. When will it stop hurting? I am tired of waiting."
"Some wounds are never completely mended," she told him gently. "But, while you are waiting," she said, her voice taking on a scolding tone, "it would help if you would sit on your throne with your foot on a stool, wrapped in woolen robes. You do not need to go on as you do, marching about everywhere, seeing to every man's task in person. Send one of your men to do that. Send T'érsite."
Diwoméde gave a short, scornful laugh. "T'érsite! That lazy dog? He is not trustworthy."
Dáuniya smiled. "He is lazy, yes. But untrustworthy? How can you say that? When you were in At'énai, who do you think paid your ransom?"
With a start, Diwoméde sat up. "I thought it was Klutaimnéstra."
With a shout of derisive laughter, Dáuniya cried, "Certainly not! If the matter had been up to her, you would have died in captivity. No, it was T'érsite who learned of your fate from the women of Mukénai's palace. It was T'érsite who traveled all about Argo, collecting a bit of bronze from every surviving foot soldier. It was T'érsite who wangled passage on a Mesheníyan trading ship that passed through here, on its way to Attika. It was he who delivered the ransom and paid for your return passage to Tíruns."
"But," Diwoméde began, "but I was not even punished when I returned."
Dáuniya nodded. "By that time, Aígist'o had the power of kingship and he was a man to be reasoned with. Again, it was T'érsite who spoke out for you. Argo needed an experienced warrior at Tíruns, he said to the king, someone who had proved his courage in war, a man who could face an invasion unafraid. T'érsite said that you drove your chariot against gods as well as men, at Tróya. Argo could not afford to take your title from you." She smiled at Diwoméde's astonishment.
"I did not know this," he whispered, clapping a hand to his head. "I thought I survived because of fate."
"Well, of course," the woman said, "the three goddesses must not have spun the thread of your life as a short strand. They must have intended for you to live more than twenty years. Still, T'érsite is a loyal follower."
"Yes, yes," Diwoméde said, brushing thoughts of the older man aside. "But do you think that I survived for some god-sent purpose? After all, Klutaimnéstra had no love for me. And still she accepted my oath of loyalty, just as wánaks Aígist'o did. And she believes in destiny."
"Perhaps," Dáuniya said, pensive now. "But what it is you are destined to do? What is this campaign you have planned with Odushéyu?"
He grasped her shoulders in both his hands, his face glowing with excitement. "Odushéyu and I spoke of many things, past and future. We agreed that I would join Meneláwo's northern expedition. Ai, I was looking forward to fighting in Qoyotíya, facing P'ilístas again after all these years. But then I came to bed and my heart was filled with dread at the thought of it and what would come afterward." With troubled eyes, he gazed at her. "Odushéyu says I must avenge Agamémnon's death."
Dáuniya gasped and a shudder rose through her spine. "Ai, Diwiyána, no!" she whispered, horrified.
The qasiléyu continued, unaware of her emotion in the swirling winds of his own. "I survived the Tróyan war, because I was meant to stand beside my true father. That must be it. But Agamémnon spoiled the plans of the gods when he sent me to Attika. I am sure of it. I survived the Attikan campaign, in order to avenge him." He jumped from the bed and paced agitatedly about the room. "Ai, Dáuniya, it is clear to me now. That is why I have been troubled with nightmares these past ten years. It was Agamémnon's restless soul that was goading me, because his murder was unavenged. Yes, yes, it is my fate to kill Aígist'o and Klutaimnéstra." He trembled with excitement at the thought.
Dáuniya, too, was shivering, as fear gripped her soul.
aaa
Meneláwo's ships came north to Tíruns early in the summer, as soon as Lakedaimón's spring harvest of barley was in. When the husband of the famed 'Elléniyan queen arrived, leading his fifteen longboats, Diwoméde was ready for him. Bronze-smiths and carpenters had flocked to Tíruns, as word spread from town to town that there was work for them to do. The Argive qasiléyu had forty vessels of his own, ready to join the expedition, fully half the fleet that the whole county of Argo could put to sea in a single campaign. Meneláwo was surprised by the large number, since only a single fortress was under Diwoméde's command. But refugees from the drought and its accompanying disorder had fled to Tíruns in a steady stream, all during the preceding decade. Among them were many men who were ready now for adventure, desperate for a chance to do something with their lives besides beg for handouts. They were prepared to risk everything rather than spend all their days in idleness, gambling and drinking sour wine in the shadow of the fortress walls.
aaa
In northern Ak'áiwiya, T'eshalíya's troops, under prince Púrwo's leadership, pillaged from one end of Qoyotíya to the other, alongside their allies, the men of Attika. Much of what had once been fertile countryside now lay in ruins, the cities sacked and burned, the surviving townspeople and villagers now destitute and driven into the hills. Qoyotíya's capital of T'ébai had fallen to combined pressure from within and without, long before the Tróyan war. Aúli's famous port had gone up in flames not long after that same conflict. Neither city had been completely rebuilt. Only a few hardy souls remained in either settlement. Now, the monumental fortress of Éyutresi was under siege, the people slowly starving behind its walls of neatly carved stone. Attika's chief qasiléyu, Menést'eyu, guarded all the approaches to this landlocked city, preventing its resupply. The people of Éyutresi could only wait, with diminishing hope, for their southern allies to come to their rescue.
Panaléyo, king of Qoyotíya, was helpless to aid Éyutresi, as he had taken refuge in his largest fortress. He, too, was besieged,
but in Kópai. This citadel guarded the dams that controlled the waters of the lake of the same name. Here was the northern kingdom's most precious possession, the grain-growing land reclaimed from the lake, and here the king's presence was needed the most. Whoever controlled this heartland was the true ruler of the country.
The walls of Kópai stood at the eastern end of the lake, on a rocky hillock that rose like an island in a sea of low lying fields. The outer wall of the fortress followed the edge of the long hilltop, encompassing an area more than seven times that of wealthy Mukénai. Villagers from around the lake took refuge behind those vast walls of neatly dressed, rectangular stones that had been laid in regular courses that were as even as brickwork. The fortifications were massive, wide enough at the top for a chariot to drive upon. Each of the four gates was heavily guarded, closed by an oak door that had been thickly plated with bronze, for extra strength. Each of those great doors was positioned at the inner circuit of the wall, so that an attacking army would be forced into a small, narrow passage to enter the citadel. In that way, the entering spearmen's undefended right sides would be exposed to the arrows of the Qoyotíyans who were posted atop the walls. Archers wearing crowns of feathers manned the battlements at each gate, with baskets full of arrows at their feet.
Púrwo had camped his army beneath Kópai's heights, close to where a paved and stepped path led from the plain below to the main gate, on the southwest. The rough tents of his men, made of ox hide, littered the fields where grain had been harvested not long before. But now, only brown stubble covered the dry, hard-packed earth.
At dawn, Púrwo rose and stood before the flap of his tent. He gave a cursory salute to the eastern sky, where the sun's rim had just peeked above the far hilltops. Urinating carelessly on the parched soil beside the tent, he stretched his naked muscles and scratched at the roots of his long, disheveled hair. With a glare, he turned toward the fortress and spat in the direction of the two towers flanking the main gate. "Préswa take you all to 'Aidé!" he cursed, then beckoned to the nearest watchman. "You there, find my troop leaders and bring them to my tent," he commanded.
"Yes, wánaks," the spearman responded dutifully, immediately trotting away.
Púrwo sent his qasiléyus back out as soon as they appeared before him, with orders to assemble the rest of the men. As they came and went, he prepared for battle, wrapping his kilt around his waist, tying leather greaves on his shins, donning chest armor of bronze plates sewn to leather beneath, and the northerner's cap of eagle feathers, dyed red, on his head.
When the southern Ak'áyan kings had last seen the T'eshalíyan prince, Púrwo had been a mere boy of fifteen. He had missed the major battles of the Tróyan war and had joined Agamémnon's army only in time to see Wilúsiya's capital city fall. But, in the years since Tróya had been sacked, he had grown to full stature, tall and broad-shouldered, muscled and tanned, as his more famous father had been. His beard was full and black as he entered a warrior's prime years.
T'eshalíyan foot soldiers gathered on the field to hear their leader, each man carrying his spear and round shield. Púrwo, too, held his lance in hand, and his shield on his left arm, a sheathed sword hanging at his hip. He marched before the assembled soldiers to the edge of the hillside path. Mounting the first few steps, he stopped and turned, looking out over the men and their camp behind. "Last night I had a dream," the young wánaks called out to the troops.
The lesser-ranked turned to each other and murmured, "It is a sign from the gods."
Púrwo raised his spear mid-shaft to quiet them and continued, bellowing to make them all hear. "There is no need for us to wait for a seer to come from holy Put'ó. The god of earthquakes spoke to me last night and his words were as clear as those of common men. Poseidáon promised that I would take Kópai this day."
The assembled warriors cheered, calling the god's name and their leader's, pounding their shields with their spears. "Poseidáon! Púrwo!"
When the cries died down, the T'eshalíyan leader spoke again. "But I have no stomach for endless waiting. A siege is no way to win glory. We are not women, quiet and patient, or sheep content to graze. We are men. We must take action!"
Again the troops interrupted him with cheers. "Poseidáon!" they shouted and gave the ululating war-cry, "Alalá!"
"I will challenge the Qoyotíyans to single combat," the T'eshalíyan wánaks announced, to murmurs and nods of approval from his troops. "Let them choose a champion to fight to the death. The battle for Kópai will begin and end before the sun sets. I will give areté or gain it this day." So saying, he turned once more toward the hillside, his men's cheers ringing in his ears, and climbed the steps to the main gate.
He stopped before the twin towers, where the battlements bristled with feathered caps and where scores of bronze arrowheads were already set to bows, the strings drawn back against the feathered shafts. Without raising his shield, Púrwo marched back and forth across the narrow, paved platform before the gate. He glared without fear at the watchers on the heights, calling, "Who will fight with me?"
Below him, on the plain, T'eshalíyans shook their spears, shouting insults at the Qoyotíyans. "Are you fawns? Are you sheep? Run and hide behind your mothers' skirts, little boys!"
Púrwo repeated his challenge, "Who will fight with me?"
The drawn bowstrings relaxed, arrows lowered. Feathered heads upon the walls bent together, as the warriors discussed who would be their champion. At length, the heavy double doors opened below and a middle-aged man marched out the gate. He was dressed in the same manner as Púrwo, with armor of leather and bronze, and a headdress of tossing, red-dyed feathers.
Standing with his feet spread, the Qoyotíyan champion brought the butt of his spear down on the limestone pavement with a thud. To cheers and hearty cries of "Díwo!" and "Panaléyo!" from the walls behind, he called out, "I am wánaks Panaléyo. I will fight with you."
CHAPTER FIVE
PURWO
"But first," the Qoyotíyan king continued, "bring a ram for the sacrifice. Kings and qasiléyus of both sides must take oaths upon the blood. If Púrwo wins, my men will stand aside and give Kópai and all its inhabitants over to T'eshalíya's king. But if I win, Púrwo's men will immediately march back to the sea and sail home again, leaving my land in peace forever."
Púrwo agreed. Both champions descended the staircase of stone and timber, down the hillside to the plain, Panaléyo followed by his troops in single file. The two armies lined up on the plain, facing each other beneath the low cliff, as Kópai's women and old men climbed the walls of the fortress to watch the combat in safety. T'eshalíyan qasiléyus brought a well-fed sheep to the empty ground between the two lines of troops, the Qoyotíyan officers providing a sack of wine, a basket of grain, and a large bronze bowl. They were followed by a short line of Qoyotíyan royal women, clothed in their brightly colored, flounced skirts, their tight bodices leaving their breasts bare, their long hair entwined with beads.
Panaléyo used the butt of his spear to mark off the ground where the combat would take place, interrupting his task with commands to his men. "Léito, gather twenty spearmen, each one with full armor. See that no man enters the arena until the fight is finished. Assemble the best archers behind your line, to back up your position. I do not know whether we can trust these T'eshalíyans. Erk'omeníyo, you are to guide my wife and daughters back through the gate after the sacrifice. Choose three others to go with you, men you can trust."
As the preparations for the sacrifice and single combat proceeded, Púrwo spoke quietly with his head archer. "Sk'édiyo, you must stand with your bowmen near the fighting ground. If I draw blood from the Qoyotíyan champion, do nothing. But, if Panaléyo draws my blood, down him immediately with your arrows. Do not wait for the other spearmen to stand up and protect you with their shields. Once your arrows are flying, all of the men will rise to their feet. You will have cover soon enough. Shoot the very moment you see my blood. Do you understand me?"
; Sk'édiyo nodded, wide-eyed. "I understand, wánaks. But what about the oath you are about to swear? Are you really prepared to break it so quickly? Are you not afraid of the gods, or of your dead father's anger?"
Púrwo struck the archer's jaw with his fist, knocking the lesser-ranked man to the ground. Standing over Sk'édiyo, Púrwo growled through clenched teeth, "I face gods and spirits unafraid, just as I face men of any nation. As for you, the only anger you need fear in this life is mine! Face it you will, too, if you do not do as I tell you. Shoot Panaléyo, if he wounds me. I will have this city by nightfall or I will have your heart for my supper!"
Sk'édiyo's dark eyes widened further. Rubbing his face, he quickly responded, "I understand and will obey, wánaks." He scrambled to his feet, still watching his leader fearfully.
Púrwo laughed, backing away to give the bowman room. "In later ages, all men will remember great Ak'illéyu's greater son," he crowed, "and they will tremble at the memory!" With that, he turned on his heel toward the place of sacrifice.
He raised his short sword above the sheep's head, as his men held the bleating animal still. Panaléyo held a bowl beneath the ram's jaw, ready to catch the falling blood. "Father Poseidáon! Mother Diwiyána!" Púrwo called toward the sky. "Lady At'ána and Wánaks Díwo, I call upon you. Witness our oaths, sworn upon the blood of the ram. If Panaléyo wins, I leave Qoyotíya in peace. If I win, all the cities of this land are mine. If any man breaks his oath, may his dead ancestors rise from their graves and torment his soul forever." He brought the sword down against the sheep's neck and all of its muscles contracted spasmodically, then collapsed.
"Alalá!" the royal women trilled, their tongues moving rapidly from side to side, and they raised their hands to the sky. The attending T'eshalíyans held the dying ram for Panaléyo to catch the blood. Then it was the women's turn to act. They mixed wine with the essence of life in the bowl.