by Diana Gainer
Diwoméde pointed to where he wanted it, not far from his right knee, waiting silently as she moved his little table out of the way. "Sit," he commanded, pointing again to the chair.
She sat, her lips parted and breathing heavily from the exertion. To her surprise, Diwoméde laid his battered right foot in her lap. With a questioning glance at the qasiléyu, she pulled the kidskin boot from his foot and began to massage the old scars.
He avoided her eyes, quietly staring out at the other servants. "T'érsite," he called, "get your lúra. I want to hear a song."
Obediently, the laborer left the room, returning shortly with his simple instrument of tortoise shell and stretched gut. "What do you want to hear, qasiléyu?" T'érsite asked respectfully.
"Something light, something festive. How about the battle of the frogs and mice," the younger man answered.
T'érsite was as surprised as Dáuniya had been. But he was pleased. Bawling unmusically and striking the poorly tuned strings of his lúra without any sense of rhythm, he sang the old song. As he did so, the atmosphere in the room brightened. The serving women began to talk, quietly at first, more loudly as the wine started to warm them. When Diwoméde relaxed in his seat, slumped in his chair and dozing, the servants at last began to smile. By the time T'érsite's song was finished, an air of contentment, if not of festivity, had overtaken them all. The qasiléyu was asleep, his foot still in Dáuniya's lap. Quietly, so as not to wake him, the serving men and women crept away, one by one. Only when all the others had gone did T'érsite approach him.
"Wake up, qasiléyu," Dáuniya called softly, patting the foot in her lap.
As Diwoméde's heavy eyes opened slightly, T'érsite leaned close to say, "Let me help you to your bed-chamber, qasiléyu."
Diwoméde nodded and sat up. He yawned and rubbed his eyes before reaching for the helping hands stretched out toward him. He let T'érsite and Dáuniya pull him to his feet and put his arms over their shoulders for support as he walked.
At his chamber door, he removed his arm from T'érsite's shoulder. "Go to bed," Diwoméde told the laborer warmly. "Get some sleep, old man."
With wondering glances behind him, T'érsite left the qasiléyu as Diwoméde pulled Dáuniya into the bed-chamber. When the couple had disappeared behind the qasiléyu's door, T'érsite clapped his thighs and laughed heartily for the first time in months. He danced down the corridor, repeating his song of mice and frogs.
"Artop'ágo, king of mice,
Called up his loyal qasiléyus…"
aaa
Diwoméde walked to his bed and sat down, looking up at the woman. Dáuniya stood by him, lit only by a small saucer lamp held in her hand. Despite the gloom, he could see that she was smiling at him. She kept her smile, too, as she set the lamp on the chest that stood at the foot of his bed and pulled off her skirt to stand naked before him. He pulled off his belt and kilt, dropping them to the floor, and opened his arms to receive her.
With a giggle of pleasure, Dáuniya threw herself upon him, knocking him to his back on the bed. She kissed his lips and beard, his eyes and neck, and squeezed him so tightly in her arms that he thought she might crack his bones. He reciprocated, running rough hands over her smooth back and buttocks, pressing his face into her long hair.
"Let us do it the old way," he told her, rolling her off his chest. Sitting up, he pushed the fleeces toward the head of the bed. "Do it the way we did when we first left Tróya." He leaned his back against the pile of sheepskins and spread his legs, revealing his male member, tall and straight, ready for her.
"It has been a long time," Dáuniya sighed happily. She clambered eagerly to her hands and knees and backed into the space between his legs. Her feet slid neatly beneath his thighs and he slid almost as easily into her. Rocking slowly back and forth on her hands and knees, Dáuniya moaned happily. Diwoméde, hands on her hips to guide her, moaned with equal pleasure. The pace of her rocking increased steadily. Both breathed deeply. As she rocked backward toward him, Dáuniya pressed harder with each repetition. Diwoméde's fingers dug into the soft flesh of her buttocks and he pulled her against him ever more quickly. At last, he gave a grunting sigh of release and shuddered. She rocked a few times more, a humming moan parting her lips.
With a deep sigh of satisfaction, Dáuniya pulled away from Diwoméde. She rested a moment, on her side, and wiped herself with the end of one of the sheepskins. He still lay against the piled fleeces, looking at her thoughtfully. His face had lost its hard lines and he spoke quietly. "I missed you."
Dáuniya sat up with a tremulous smile, brushing the long hair out of her face. "I missed you, too," she said fervently and lay beside him, kissing his shoulder.
The hint of a frown creased his forehead as he watched her. "I missed you last winter. I needed you in T'ráki. Meneláwo said the poppy would make me feel better." His frown deepened and he could not continue to meet her eyes. Looking down at his chest, he rubbed at the mat of hair. "That is why…." He kicked impatiently at the bed, unable to think of how to say what he meant. "Ai, to 'Aidé with it, I just missed you."
"I missed you, too," Dáuniya repeated and burst into tears. She buried her face in his shoulder and wept unrestrainedly. "Owái, beloved, I thought I would die with you still angry at me for what I did."
He put his arms around her, surprised at her response. "Ai, woman, if my anger upsets you so much, why did you do it? Why did you lock me up?"
She raised her head, still dripping tears. "Because someone had to save you from the lady of the poppy, do you not see?"
Though he still clasped her in his arms, he stiffened. "But I did not ask you to do that," he argued bitterly, reminded of his earlier anger.
"Even so," Dáuniya responded, still crying, "it had to be done."
Diwoméde frowned. He had expected an apology from her, not this. "But I did not want you to do it," he argued.
She nodded, sniffing away her last tears. "I know, Diwoméde. But I had to do what you could not do yourself."
"Even though you knew it would make me angry?" he demanded, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"Even so," she said, and her voice was firm despite her damp cheeks.
He was not pleased but said no more. He had wanted the anger to end. "Get me something to eat," he commanded, releasing his hold on her and looking away. His face was hard again, his voice cold.
"Yes, qasiléyu," she responded quietly. She found her skirt on the floor and wrapped it around her hips.
Watching her, he saw dark striations over her belly, the marks of childbearing. He had not noticed them earlier, in his passion. "I seem to remember you had a baby," he said uncertainly.
"Yes," she answered, without looking at him. "But she died. My milk dried up and I could not find a nursemaid." Her voice trailed away and as she turned to the door, Diwoméde knew the hands at her face were wiping away more tears. To his surprise, he felt his throat constrict around a lump he could not swallow.
She returned shortly, lentils and a wooden spoon in a ceramic bowl in one hand, a basket of unspun wool in the other. "I am sorry, but this is all there was," she explained, more composed than before, but solemn and quiet.
Diwoméde took the bowl and began to eat, his eyes still upon the woman. He noticed the circular scar on her breast and felt a rush of shame color his cheeks. His eyes fell and he concentrated on the brown beans in his bowl, eating hungrily.
Dáuniya saw where he looked. She sat at the foot of the bed and took up her spinning, twisting wool into thread with distaff and spindle. Without looking at the qasiléyu, she quietly explained further. "A woman should drink milk if she is going to nurse a baby. But the goats do not have enough water to drink, so they hardly give any milk. What there is, must feed the kids, if we are to have any goats at all next year. It is the same with the sheep and cows." She glanced up from her spinning to see him staring again at her breast. "It was not your fault, beloved."
He was embarrassed and looked away, scowlin
g. Stirring the lentils in his bowl, he spoke haltingly, "Dáuniya, what you did to me was wrong. No man should be forced to endure what I suffered, no man, not for any reason."
She continued her work as before, dropping and turning the spindle, drawing out a thread from the bats of wool as the spindle turned round and round. Quietly, she said, "I am not the one who made you suffer, Diwoméde. That was the doing of your mistress, the poppy. Astárt is a cruel goddess. The first taste of her gift is very bitter. That is a warning that every man should heed. If he does not, he is seduced by the sweetness that follows and he is filled with craving for more. He can never get enough.
"In time, the sweetness fails him. He gets no pleasure, but still he longs for the poppy. Always there must be more of it, and still more. He will do anything, no matter how wicked or dishonorable, for the sake of that evil flower. Lady Astárt takes away all he has and makes that man her slave. She takes the respect that men once held for him. She takes all his possessions, as payment for her essence. His friends desert him, even his family forgets him. At last, when she can get nothing more from him, she sends him to her pale sister in 'Aidé." She stopped and looked the qasiléyu in the eyes. "If I had not done what I did, you would have died."
He returned to his eating without answering her. He was not sure what to say, not certain any longer what he felt toward this strange, captive woman. At last, he pointed his wooden spoon at her. "But, Dáuniya, I am a qasiléyu and you treated me like a slave. There is such a thing as loyalty…"
She scoffed. "Idé, yes, I have heard your story of Damón and Put'íya. We tell the same tale ourselves, in the land of ítalo, though the ending is different. Ai gar, my qasiléyu, I will tell you our story, whether you want to hear it or not.
"Damón and Put'íya went hunting, alone together in the woods. They did this often, year after year, and they were the closest of friends. They thought more of each other than of their own brothers. Each man had saved the other's life, not just once, but many times. Then one day, when they were hunting, a poisonous snake bit Damón. And do you know where it bit him? Ai, it was a terrible place, the worst that a man could imagine, on the end of that bit of meat between his legs."
Diwoméde winced at the thought, no longer eating. This was not the same story he had heard and told.
Her spinning forgotten, Dáuniya leaned toward him and continued, her face eerily shadowed in the gloom. "Damón suffered terribly, writhing on the ground and screaming in pain. Ai, beloved, it was worse for him than what you suffered in At'énai, with your shoulder and your foot doubly wounded. Put'íya was in torment, too, to see his friend. He could not carry Damón, so he ran back into the city to find a healer, one who could tell him what to do about this terrible wound. Put'íya was loyal to his friend and so he ignored everything else, as he ran. A messenger came out from his house to tell him his wife was about to give birth, but he would not stop. His other friends called to him to join them and have wine, but he would not. He passed the marker stones at the crossroads, but he did not stop to leave an offering. He passed a priestess, who asked his help at a sacrifice. He did not even turn to look at her. Nothing could slow him, nothing could distract him from his errand.
"In the town he found a healer, a man of great renown, called Asklépiyo. This healer had cured all sorts of diseases, he had ended epidemics, and saved men from death who had lost whole limbs on the battlefield. Asklépiyo could set bones and drive out possessing dáimons, and he knew every kind of herb and magic spell. Asklépiyo listened as Put'íya described his friend's terrible injury.
"'Only one treatment will save your friend from death,' Asklépiyo told him. 'You must take your knife and make two small cuts, one on either side of the bite.'" She made cutting motions in the air.
Diwoméde shuddered, remembering how his toes had been removed. He pictured again the pitiless bronze, felt again the sharp agony as the blade sliced through his flesh. His back ran with sweat and he put a hand to the scars on his foot.
"But that is not all that Asklépiyo told him," Dáuniya went on, coming closer to Diwoméde, talking more quickly, more quietly. "'Then,' Asklépiyo said, 'you must suck the poison from the wound, or your friend will surely die. But hurry! It must be done before sunset.'
"That most loyal of men ran back to where Damón still lay among the trees, suffering horribly. Again, Put'íya ignored every temptation to stop or slow down. Ai, you can imagine how tired he was, when he finally returned to his friend. Put'íya was so out of breath he fell to the ground beside Damón."
Diwoméde, sure that he could guess the rest of the story, had begun to eat again. He did not respond when Dáuniya paused. She stood beside him, shaking her distaff as she had once shaken her finger at him. "Damón looked up at his friend and asked, 'What did the healer say?' Put'íya looked down and told him…" She waited until Diwoméde put the spoon in his mouth. "He said, 'You are going to die.'"
Diwoméde burst out laughing, spitting lentils across the bed. He gasped and choked. A tear rolled from the corner of one eye and he coughed until his face was purple, a bean forced from his nose. Still he roared with laughter.
"Do not tell me about loyalty!" Dáuniya told him, chuckling along with his mirth. "A woman would have saved Damón."
Diwoméde reached out and pulled her onto his lap as his merriment subsided. "Ai, woman, you are a barbarian," he complained, but he was smiling. He began to caress her shoulders and neck. "Lie with me again, Dáuniya," he demanded, pressing her up against him.
She embraced him happily. As they sank down on the sheepskins together, she asked, "What was this about needing me in T'ráki? Were there no women in the north?"
"Not like you, Dáuniya," he murmured, nuzzling her ears, a leg thrown over hers, "not like you."
aaa
Before the autumn was half over, a message came to Tíruns from Mukénai to disturb the qasiléyu's household. Warned by T'érsite of the approach of a visiting dignitary, Diwoméde awaited the messenger at the main gate of his citadel. The man rode in a chariot painted a brilliant red, his body swathed in purple wool, embroidered with Mukénai's rosettes in gold thread. Even his head was covered by that all-encompassing cloak, so that those awaiting his arrival could not figure out who he was until he was almost upon them.
"With such a royal chariot and robe, he must be a king. But he is too short to be our new wánaks," T'érsite decided while the chariot was still a good ways off. "Could it be Orésta? He would have reason to hide his face, since the Argives are not too fond of him."
"No, this man is too wide in the shoulders," Diwoméde concluded, watching the matched pair of horses. The animals were large and well fed, an unusual sight in those times. "Besides, how could Orésta come from Mukénai, without having passed through Tíruns earlier?"
T'érsite scratched his hairless forehead, squinting at the stranger. "Is it possible this is Peirít'owo? You remember the prince from Kep'túr, the exile? I never heard what happened to him."
Diwoméde was doubtful. "I remember all too well. But Peirít'owo was as thin as old Néstor, the last time I saw him. This man's build is more like…." As the chariot pulled up to the eastern gateway, the messenger threw back the corner of the cloak that covered his head. "Odushéyu!" the qasiléyu called out, laughing with surprise. "What are you doing here? Why are you back so soon? What happened to my three ships?"
Odushéyu got down from the cart, moving stiffly, his face grim. "Not out here. Take me to your mégaron and we can talk. I have a message for you from Mukénai."
Ensconced in a comfortable chair, Odushéyu told his tale over a cup of wine. But, unlike on his previous visit, or at any other time that Diwoméde could remember, the It'ákan was sober and intense. His voice did not ring out boldly and dramatically as it had in the past. His tale included no fabulous beings from legend.
"I sailed south to Lakedaimón with Meneláwo, as you know." Listening, Diwoméde nodded, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The exile continued,
"In every village we passed, in great cities and in small, Lakedaimón's coastline bore signs of violence. The bodies of the dead were everywhere, unburied, half-eaten by wild animals, because there was no one left to care for them. 'Ermiyóna wailed and scratched her cheeks at the first stop and she did the same at the second. But then she stopped coming to the shore with us. She preferred to remain on board our lead ship, anchored at the edge of the deep water. Ai, the girl is not the half-mad thing her mother is, I will say that for her. After seeing the extent of the destruction, 'Ermiyóna must have assumed her mother was dead and she lamented as a woman should. But then she put an end to it. Owái, as for her father…"
Odushéyu groaned and shook his head, staring at the paint flaking on the plastered floor. "Orésta and I were afraid that Meneláwo would lose his mind. Ai, as it turned out, he fought off the maináds, but he underwent a change I would not care to see a second time. At first he was angry, as all the men were, and he lamented his losses with his daughter. Then he was afraid, and talked only of his wife, praying to every god and goddess that she was still safe. Each day we sailed on, staying close to the shore, and every walled enclosure we passed, large or small, held nothing but smoking ruins."
"Who attacked him?" Diwoméde asked, growing hot with anger and the desire for revenge. "Was it Ainyáh? Has he turned against us again?"
Odushéyu shook his head. "That is what the men thought, at first. After all, Ainyáh was never a loyal ally, always easily angered. He might have nursed a secret desire for vengeance. And he was on Ak'áyan shores the last time we saw him. But it was not just the small towns of Lakedaimón that were laid waste, Diwoméde. It was everything. The whole coast was burned and plundered. I have never seen such destruction, except in Wilúsiya, and that was only after we had spent ten months in the place."