Conspiracy of the Islands (The Age of Bronze)

by Diana Gainer

  "Ai, Dáuniya, what have we done?" T'érsite moaned, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

  "You have sealed your fates, traitorous dogs!" Diwoméde growled, trying to get his face off the soiled bed. "You will not get away with this. No one does this to me. I will make you pay, if I have to come back from the dead to do it!"

  The two at the foot of the bed turned to look at him. "Idé," Dáuniya agreed calmly, "we cannot leave him lying in that mess. Bring a dish of water and some fresh sheepskins." As T'érsite nodded resignedly and dragged himself to his feet, the woman walked around the bed to sit closer to Diwoméde's head. She pulled the wet fleeces out from under him and, with an unsoiled end, dabbed at his filthy face.

  As she leaned over him, the qasiléyu lunged his head toward her. He caught one breast, bare and enlarged with milk, and bit hard. Dáuniya screamed shrilly, one hand clutching at the source of the agonizing pain, digging her fingernails into the man's cheek with the other. T'érsite rushed back from the doorway at Dáuniya's cry. Taking up a sword in its scabbard from the floor, the laborer struck the qasiléyu's naked thigh. Diwoméde yelped. He released the woman's breast as blood from his scratched cheek mingled with the vomit in his beard.

  Dáuniya toppled over the side of the bed and lay curled on the floor, still screaming and clutching her breast, tears pouring over her face. Outraged, T'érsite beat the captive qasiléyu, bringing the flat of the covered blade against the bound man's shoulders and back, again and again. "You are an animal!" the laborer shouted, spewing saliva in his rage. "Dog, you dishonor the bitch who bore you!"

  Diwoméde cried out at every blow, calling on the names of gods and goddesses. His body convulsed as another wave of nausea rolled over him and he began to retch again. T'érsite had the sword over his head, ready to strike once more, but he reconsidered at the sound of his prisoner's misery, and the sight of the younger man writhing against his bonds. The laborer dropped the sheathed weapon to the floor and helped Dáuniya to the foot of the bed.

  Still crying, she looked back over her shoulder at Diwoméde. He lay gasping, his hair mired in a dark, stinking pool. "You have hurt me, Diwoméde," she wept, "but you will pay. Your lady will see to that, your precious lady Astárt."

  "Who is that?" T'érsite asked her, shaken, his face pale. "Owái, woman, what terrible goddess have you invoked?"

  "His lady of the poppy," Dáuniya answered angrily, looking down at the bright, red bite marks.

  "Come," T'érsite said to her. "Let Mélisha have a look at you. He can lie in his filth awhile."

  "No," Dáuniya responded, standing and sniffing away the last of her tears. "No, we will do what is right, even though he does not deserve it." Once more, she went to sit alongside the qasiléyu, though not as close as before. Shaking his head at her stubbornness, T'érsite went for water.

  As the serving woman cleaned him, removing stained fleeces and replacing them with fresh ones, Diwoméde lay still. He could hardly keep his eyes open. His breathing was shallow and slow, and he seemed plastered to the bed. When T'érsite brought water, Dáuniya was not content merely to remove the vomit. She insisted on bathing the qasiléyu from head to toe, for, as she explained, he smelled as though he had not washed since leaving Tíruns the year before. Without further protest or struggle, Diwoméde let her do it, watching her through half-closed eyes.

  When she had finished, she sat on the floor, leaning wearily against the wall close beyond. There she gingerly felt of the swelling welt on her breast.

  "I am sorry, Dáuniya," Diwoméde muttered, watching her. "I did not mean to hurt you."

  "Yes you did," she cried, still angry. Shaking her finger, she threatened, "If my baby starves because of this, I will borrow Mélisha's fishing trident and run you through."

  Diwoméde blinked as tears came unbidden to his eyes. "What baby?" he whispered.

  "Our baby," Dáuniya answered, less heatedly than she had spoken before.

  The qasiléyu began to cry, hiding his face in his arm. "Go ahead, run me through," he wept, "you would be doing me a favor."

  Sighing, Dáuniya returned to sit on the side of the bed. Gently, she stroked his freshly washed hair, scolding without anger. "No, I am not going to do any such thing, even though I think you deserve it. Ai, Diwoméde, the very idea! Arranging a marriage with a noble woman, while your concubine is in labor with your first daughter. What kind of behavior is that?"

  "It was wrong," the qasiléyu wailed, thoroughly miserable. "I can do nothing right and Diwiyána always punishes me for it. Owái, Dáuniya, I cannot bear this! It is killing me! Either ease my pain with poppy wine or run me through and end it."

  The serving woman patted his heaving shoulders. "Ai, you are not dying. You do not need poppies or swords, beloved. You will begin to feel better soon enough, without either one."

  "When, Dáuniya, when?" Diwoméde demanded, "How soon will I feel better?"

  "In three days or so," the woman answered, moving away from him. As she did so, his fury returned and he fought the leather straps binding him. He bellowed that he would crush her like the invisible insects that he could feel crawling on his body. He would burn her in fire so that she would know how he felt as his own flesh was consumed with fever.

  aaa

  Over the course of the fourteen days that it took for the lady of the poppy to completely release her hold on him, Diwoméde alternately threatened and begged. But neither Dáuniya nor T'érsite would give him so much as a sip from any poppy juglet. In fact, although they cut his bonds after the first day, they locked him in a storeroom, empty but for a few fleeces to make a bed, and an empty wine-bowl for his wastes. They gave him nothing but barley gruel to eat and he did not even get wine for his drink, but only water. While he was locked in the room, they took turns holding vigil outside the door. While one stayed near Diwoméde, the other conducted a thorough search of the fortress. Every chamber, every storage jar was inspected and more than once. Whenever juglets were found, shaped like the dried head of a poppy, they were carried to the surrounding countryside, cast into a ravine, and smashed.

  They released the qasiléyu on the fifteenth day, but only after he swore by the River Stuks that he would take no revenge. Pale and drawn, he came from the storeroom, brimming with anger. He put them to work immediately. First, he insisted on a proper bath, in a bathtub. Dáuniya and T'érsite were to carry all the water, just the two of them. They did so without complaint, anxious to regain his good will. As Dáuniya washed the qasiléyu, he stared past her at the wall of the bath chamber, his jaw set and eyes burning. He did not soften when she gently dried him afterward with clean linen. Nor would his anger relent when she rubbed his limbs with oil, though she gave special attention both to his old injuries and to the newer bruises on his back.

  As T'érsite entered the bath-chamber to begin drawing off the water, he joked nervously, "I wonder why no one has made a bathtub with a stopper, like a storage jar. Pull the plug and the water runs out. Would that not be a good idea?"

  Diwoméde growled, "Such a thing would be useless. A stopper! Ai gar, that is what bath-pourers are for." T'érsite bent to his work without further attempts at conversation.

  After his bath, draped in embroidered robes, his hair and beard neatly combed, Diwoméde passed to his mégaron and demanded a proper meal. In silent dread, the servants went about their work, not daring to look at their qasiléyu.

  Drinking his first wine in half a month, Diwoméde called upon T'érsite to sing. "No song of frogs and lobsters, either," the leader demanded coldly. "Sing about the legendary friends, Damón and Put'íya. I want to hear about loyalty." T'érsite sang out of tune, forgetting half the words stricken with guilt.

  When he had finished, Diwoméde addressed his household, telling his own story and how the loyalty he had showed to Orésta impressed even the barbarian priestess of the Mar-Yandún horsemen. That was a story worth remembering, he told his chastened followers, a tale to be passed on through generations.<
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  "Owái," T'érsite quietly moaned to Dáuniya at the end of the qasiléyu's tale, "he will not take revenge, because of his oath. But he will never forgive us." Dáuniya turned to the laborer, her eyes swimming in tears, and said nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NESTOR

  Summer passed into autumn, and the ever-hopeful country people of Argo prepared to sow their wheat and barley. They celebrated the annual restoration of the divine Kórwa to her mother, Diwiyána, as they had since time immemorial. The Argive commoners carried their seed grain up, from storage jars kept beneath the ground, just as Kórwa rose from the underworld of 'Aidé. The people feasted on gooseflesh and bread, in honor of the divine mother and child, plowing the fields a sacred three times.

  But there were empty places at every hearth. Disease, hunger, and lawlessness had taken their toll in every home. In every heart there were questions. Had Kórwa seen their kinsmen who had arrived in 'Aidé the past year? Which of the living would go with the divine child when she descended again, at the next harvest, in the spring?

  Throughout Ak'áiwiya, monarchs sent gifts to the holy places of the three goddesses, and to the priests and priestesses who served the dread ladies. To appease the immortals' anger, the prophets urged that only the best animals be sacrificed in the festivals, that year. Neither sheep nor goats were good enough, it was clear, no matter how well fed, no matter how beautifully adorned. Garlands of flowers and gilded horns were simply not sufficient to buy the hearts of the great deities. Despite the difficulties of the drought, despite the expense in a time of increasing poverty, the people's gifts to the gods had to be greater than before. The sacrifices that year must be of cattle, of full-grown bulls, as had been the custom in ancient times, when Kep'túr had been the paramount kingdom of Ak'áiwiya, rather than Argo.

  There were no complaints at this demand, either, certainly not from Ak'áiwiya's commoners, desperate for relief. Nor were there any from the kings and queens who would have to provide the animals for the sacrifices. They might have complained in better times, but now they were too frightened, both of their own people and of their deities. If they questioned the local servants of the gods, they had to send to the holy island of 'Elléniya to consult the seeress and queen whose name they no longer dared to pronounce. All her prophesies were of more tribulation ahead. The mere announcement of such inauspicious news might be enough to rouse a suffering populace to rebellion.

  That year, a new seeress made herself known in war-torn Qoyotíya, calling herself Ip'igéneya, Strong Born. She claimed, as her name implied, that she was an incarnation of Artémito, wánasha of the maináds. She had traveled to the ends of the world, this priestess told the people, and even to the shores of the river of the dead. Their economy shattered by the war with T'eshalíya and with the political situation in turmoil after the loss of their ruling family, the Qoyotíyans fearfully accepted her as officiating priestess at holy Put'ó. The nervous rulers of the other kingdoms did not object to the unusual move of granting an unknown foreigner such a high post. Fearing that her incredible claim of divinity might actually be true, the wánaktes sent Ip'igéneya placating gifts of bronze, to welcome her to Ak'áiwiya. Her warning went back to every capital in return, inscribed in wax upon sealed wooden tablets. If the bulls were not enough to please the goddesses, their only option for the following year would be the most ancient and holy sacrifice of all, human flesh.

  aaa

  In Tíruns, as elsewhere, the festival of planting was subdued, as news of Ip'igéneya's message became known. The local prophets led the people of Tíruns in a procession through the streets of the town, as they always had. Before the gates of the fortress, the oldest seer made the usual sacrifice, slitting the throat of the largest bull. The oldest priestess showed the secret of Diwiyána, the last sheaf of grain from the harvest before, as tradition required. But then the people went to their homes without celebration, neither singing nor dancing, to eat a quiet and simple meal, not the traditional feast.

  Diwoméde had been withdrawn and cold since he had resumed his duties as qasiléyu. He joined the autumnal parade without fanfare, marching in solemn silence alongside his fellow countrymen. The sacrificial bull came from his herd which, though decimated by the drought and consequent shortage of grain, had been replenished in the northern campaign. But he did not proclaim his generosity to the people, or remind them that they only had barley to plant because he had brought it to them from T'ráki. The people interpreted his extraordinary reticence as a bad omen for the coming year.

  T'érsite tried hard to make his leader smile during the festival. The laborer dressed in the padded and masked costume of the buffoon. He danced and told obscene jokes, to bring auspicious laughter from the crowd. Never did the qasiléyu's tense gaze relax. Not once did his grim stance soften. As the servants returned to the citadel palace after the sacrifice, they talked only in quiet voices among themselves. Their leader had changed, they pointed out to each other. It was a sign of a difficult winter ahead and a worse summer to follow. They might just as well select a victim to send to Put'ó right away.

  In the small anteroom before the mégaron, T'érsite and Dáuniya stopped for a moment to whisper together. Holding his wooden mask beneath his arm, T'érsite sighed, "I should not have listened to you. He will never forget what we have done to him."

  "You may be right," Dáuniya replied sadly. "Still, it was the right thing to do, even if he makes us regret it for the rest of our lives."

  "I do regret it," T'érsite moaned, speaking more loudly. "You do not realize how much. Ai, woman, I have served all my life in the household of some great man, sometimes a wánaks, sometimes a qasiléyu. Never before did I care what happened to my leader, whether he suffered or prospered, so long as I could finish a day with a warm meal and a place to sleep, out of the rain. I thought more of my pigeons than the honor of any high-born man . But Diwoméde was different. He and I fought together in the Tróyan war, for one thing. That you cannot understand. But when men fight alongside each other, a bond is forged between them that is stronger than the love for a wife or a child.

  "More than that, I saw Diwoméde grow from a boy to a man, on Tróya's battlefield. I heard men whisper about him, saying he was not really Tudéyu's son, that he was Agamémnon's bastard. At first I laughed at those rumors, even passed them on myself. But, by the end of the war, I fought any man who said such things in my presence."

  "I understand, T'érsite," Dáuniya began, pleading for his understanding, "I really do. You cared more for Diwoméde's well-being than for your own safety. That is why you were the only one I could ask to help me."

  "Ai gar, Dáuniya, you do not understand," the laborer argued, letting his voice rise in volume, though the passing serving women tried to quiet him. "Because I listened to you, I have lost something I cannot replace. I do not even know what it is, but I know that I have lost it, when I see how Diwoméde looks at me. Owái, I would rather my own, dear wife chased me out of our home with her father's fishing trident and hid my own child from me! Ai, that man is dearer to me than my own son!"

  "Hush!" scolded his wife from beside him, giving him a light smack on the shoulder. "Diwoméde will hear you. He is just behind us."

  T'érsite shook his head with a growl of frustration. "Out of my way, woman," he snapped and shoved Dáuniya aside to enter the mégaron.

  Dáuniya stumbled backward under T'érsite hand. She tripped on her long skirt and fell. She kept her seat on the cold floor for a long moment, her head bowed, letting the other servants precede her into the big room beyond. Diwoméde stepped quietly into the doorway of the antechamber and let his eyes fall upon her. With her head down and eyes on the floor, she did not see him. Wiping a silent tear from her cheek, she rose from the floor. As she padded quietly on bare feet into the mégaron, Diwoméde paused in the outer doorway, leaning against the jamb, thinking about what he had overheard.

  In the throne room, the serving men and women bustled ab
out the hearth, preparing the festival meal. All were subdued and anxious, despite the favorable omens declared moments earlier by the holy people at the sacrifice. Cooking gooseflesh and fish in caldrons, mixing water and wine, the palace laborers worked in near silence. As Diwoméde entered the room and walked through their midst, they only glanced up at him briefly and continued with their labors.

  The qasiléyu took his place on his stone seat, watching them all in silence until the meal was prepared. Dáuniya brought him his wine-cup, presenting it with downcast eyes. T'érsite carried a small table, turned upside down. He set it beside the qasiléyu's throne and the laborer's wife, Mélisha, set meat and bread on it. Then, as custom demanded for the festival, the servants stayed for the meal, squatting on the floor or sitting on the benches that lined the walls.

  Diwoméde ate and drank little, as his dark eyes took in the scene. No one sat near him, though there were a few chairs close by. They were all gathered at the far end of the room, near the door. There was no loud talk as they ate, only brief, whispered requests for more wine to be dipped from the bowl, or bread to be passed from the baskets. No smiles appeared on the many faces. It was, thought the qasiléyu, almost as if they expected someone to die. The idea was uncomfortable and he drew his warm cloak around his shoulders. The weather was changing, he noted, growing colder already. His right arm was stiff from carrying the laurel branch in the procession and his foot ached from the walking. It would be another long winter.

  "Dáuniya," he called out brusquely. The woman jumped at the sound of her name. She stood and faced him but dared not meet his harsh glare. "Come here," he demanded. As she stepped forward, he added, "Bring a chair." There was an empty one not far from him and she went to that, glancing back hopefully at T'érsite. But the laborer only scowled into his wine-cup and made no move to leave his post by the door. The chair was heavy and Dáuniya could only drag it across the painted floor. But the rest of the servants kept their seats, too. None dared be seen helping the woman who had fallen so low in their qasiléyu's esteem.