Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (19 page)

“
Ai
, and I have been dreaming about rich, creamy butter, handfuls of it melting in my mouth,” Askán laughed, running his fingers over the down on his chin, “it dribbles down my lips, getting into my beard!”

Dandling her fretful toddler on her knees, Dáuniya began to sing:

“Dance, my little bag of milk,

Dance my little goat.

Bounce upon my knees, now,

Churn the milk, my love.

“Dance, my little bag of milk,

Dance upon my lap.

Churn the butter from the milk.

Churn the milk, my love.

“Soon we’ll bounce you on our knees,

You goatskin bags of milk.

All upon our laps you’ll dance,

To separate the whey.

“Treasures we will find in you,

Whey as white as snow,

And the butter, pale and sweet,

The hidden prize of gold.”

As Flóra began to laugh and bob her head, to the rhythm of the music, other women and the older children joined in the song. Clapping their hands, they extemporized verses of their own. The Ak’áyan method of churning milk with a stick in a tall vessel soon appeared in their singing. The Assúwans then began to support Dáuniya’s version of churning milk in a leather bag, and, before long, the two parties were competing, calling and responding to one another in song. Soon, the words began to suggest another sort of dance, one that men of all nations performed on the laps of women.

The men gradually segregated themselves into a group, and spoke of ewes among the flocks that they had once guarded, of plump and woolly sheep which had given birth abundantly. St’énelo loudly encouraged such talk. He suggested that it might please the Divine Mother of gods and horses. “She whose hand can destroy all life may yet smile on her mortal children,” he proclaimed, in melodic inspiration. “The Great Goddess may one day provide us, once again, with the gifts of the flock, sacred to her Divine Kid. With hope alive in our souls, let us row in eagerness toward the holy shrine of Diwiyána and her son, Diwonúso.”

Peirít’owo raised his cup of battered copper and called out,
“Owlé
, Diwiyána! Hail to you, Diwonúso!” The other men repeated the gesture and the call, each spilling a few drops on the thirsty soil before drinking a bit himself. “I spent three years in the mountains of Kep’túr,” the young man told them all. “I did not know it then, but I watched over the last of the great, royal flocks on that island. As it happened, I returned to the lowlands just as my father was returning from that last, great war, at Tróya. I went from boy to Wolf when Ak’áiwiya’s fortunes were at their peak. But, it was my misfortune to go from Wolf to Man just as the Ak’áyan star was setting. Still, I could tell you tales of hunting wild boars and fighting off predators that would make the hair rise up on your necks. Wolves in Kep’túr are particularly large and vicious, you know. Also, there is a legend that deep in the forests of Mount Ída, there is a she-wolf as large as a horse, with the cunning of a fox, and the courage of a weasel. It makes my soul ache to think that such days of courage and wealth are lost forever. We have no words in Ak’áyan to count the number of sheep that my father had in those days.
Ai
, I tell you, before I guarded them, the sheep that we lost to that great she-wolf alone outnumbered even those that the Divine Diwonúso himself keeps at Put’ó!”

T’érsite snorted. “Make up your mind, Kep’túriyan. Do you want to brood on the past and mourn? Or do you want to compare feats of strength and cunning, and boast? As for me, I have had my fill of nostalgia. But I will tell you about something that surpasses even Kep’túr’s big lady dog there. In my days in the high pastures, I witnessed a true miracle!
Ai
, there was one nanny goat that I was especially fond of,” he announced, with a melodramatic sigh. “You know how boys are, up there in the highlands,” he added, with a wink that made his male listeners chuckle with a certain embarrassment. “It gets a little lonely, sometimes. The billy goats and the rams are doing their yearly duties, making you think about holding your own sweet ewe in your arms, one day.”

“Hmph!” Mélisha sniffed, at the edge of the women’s group, “we call them wolves or bears when they enter their teens, but they behave more like spring rams, with only one thing on their minds.”

Dáuniya laughingly agreed before rejoining the singing.

T’érsite cleared his throat noisily. Boldly staring down his audience, he continued, “As I was saying, I had this particularly good-looking nanny goat. One fine, spring day, she gave birth to a miraculous kid. This little goat had the wings of a bird…”

A burst of laughter interrupted the laborer. St’énelo’s shoulders shook with it, as he wheezed,
“Idé
, you lie like a foreign merchant! It was your pigeons that you talked about at Tróya! Whoever heard of a flying goat?”

“Indeed, it was my birds that I mentioned before,” his friend agreed, unruffled. “But, you see, I hid that wondrous goat from the
wánaks
and kept him for my own. I fed him honey and milk and butter every day, without fail. Then he repaid the favor by leading my pigeons out every night, afterward bringing back my birds, along with the pigeons of other men in the area.”

“
Ai
, that is nothing,” Odushéyu growled, with a wave of his beefy hand. “I actually saw the flocks of the one-eyed giant, the Kuklóq! Those sheep are as big as horses! I even managed to steal one of them…”

It was late in the summer when the refugees reached the bay of Kríswa, beneath the craggy slopes of Parnashó. Their delight in reaching their desired landfall at Put’ó was tempered only by the prospect of a long and difficult climb to the famous fortress. Though invisible from the deserted harbor, the citadel and sanctuary were there on the high plateau, just beneath the dense, fir grove on the mountaintop above the port. With songs of rejoicing, they disembarked with the last of their food supplies. Every woman, Ak’áyan or Assúwan, knelt on the rocky beach and kissed the ground in thanksgiving.

After a brief rest at the edge of the water, St’énelo picked up a bit of driftwood and called for the others to gather around on the beach. At the Lakedaimóniyan’s recommendation, the travelers decided to choose three ambassadors who would make the trip to the sanctuary, selecting them by lot. “This time, all the Ak’áyans in our party must take their chances, including the women and children above the age of three years,” he told them solemnly. “That means you too, Dáuniya. You made your home in an Ak’áyan’s household and gave birth on Ak’áyan soil. Whether these things were against your will or not, they make you subject to the Divine Mother of Ak’áiwiya.”

There were a few grumbles at this directive. More voiced dissent when Odushéyu put his marked pebble in Ainyáh’s helmet, T’érsite and Peirít’owo the loudest among them. But St’énelo supported the unpopular exile’s right to include his marker in the group, as he had directed Dáuniya’s. “We have all done things that we are ashamed of,” the Lakedaimóniyan pointed out. “If we had not, we would not have survived to see this day and this place. That is an unfortunate fact, but a fact, nevertheless. We must not second guess the Divine Lady who makes the tokens leap. The world has turned upside-down, with kings become exiles, and common thieves living in luxury as if they were
wánaktes
. These things could not have happened if the goddess opposed them. Only she can understand her reasons for giving one man good fortune and another bad. So, her choice cannot be predicted. We dare not risk angering her by making assumptions about who among us is worthy and who is not.”

All objections being thus overruled, Ainyáh solemnly swirled the mass of pebbles and trinkets around and around in his bronze helmet. The choice of the Lady of Fortune surprised many. It was Dáuniya’s token that fell from the helmet first. “What?” Odushéyu cried, deeply offended, when St’énelo identified the small stone with the red spot. “Ainyáh, you knocked that token out on purpose with your thumb! I do not believe that the lot was fair!”

“The
Pótniya’s
choice is fitting,” Mélisha stated firmly and her announcement met with a round of
“idé!”
from the rest of the women. “Dáuniya may not have been born one of us,” the Argive woman went on, “but it was her guidance more than anything else that brought us safely this far.” While Odushéyu was prepared to continue arguing, T’érsite puffed out his broad chest, placing his hands on his hips, and repeated his wife’s statement with a menacing air, “The Lady’s choice is fitting.”

Ainyáh made the tokens rattle a second time. This time, the lot fell upon the youthful Qérayan. “By all the demons of ‘Aidé!” Odushéyu cried, more furious than ever. “He hardly counts as an Ak’áyan! Why, he comes from a little island!
Ai gar
, he is only a child, too.”

“I am your own son!” the young man shouted, red-faced with indignation that the pirate should oppose his designation by the goddess.

“
Idé
, you are a bastard, to be sure, but that hardly proves you to be kin to me.
Ai
, look at that squat body, that barrel of a chest,” the It’ákan exile urged the refugees. “He resembles Tushrátta more than he does me!” It was all that T’érsite and St’énelo could do to prevent yet another fight from breaking out on the spot.

“Ainyáh and Diwoméde played no part in this dispute,” Dáuniya quietly observed to Mélisha, as the rest of the men shouted at one another. “Did you see?”

The older woman nodded. “They exchanged furtive glances, too. I have a bad feeling about this. Have those two made some pact? To what end?”

Their conversation ended abruptly as Diwoméde proved to be the third choice of the goddess for her ambassador. Dáuniya was not surprised, though her heart was troubled. But she did not voice her concern aloud.

Odushéyu was less reticent. “This is absurd, unspeakable!” the exile cried, waving at the qasiléyu. “Look at this, a half-Assúwan boy, a foreign woman from the rim of the world, and now a cripple! Three such unworthy representatives I have never seen! It must have been some mischievous Párpariyan spirit that tossed their markers out. The goddess herself could only be offended by this embassy. Speak out and support me, Ak’áyans. Reject these miserable beggars, in Diwiyána’s name. If you insult the goddess in this way, she will punish every man, woman, and child among us. No, no, St’énelo, do not argue with me! The danger is too great. You must all ignore these lying tokens and send me as your spokesman, instead. I was a king once, and I will be again, if At’ána is willing. I alone am worthy of this important mission.”

But St’énelo would not hear of it. “The goddess herself made her choice!” the thin charioteer insisted, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Her reasons for her choice are her own, not to be guessed at by mortals, regardless of their past ranks and glories. Disregarding her divine wishes is far riskier than honoring them!”

Odushéyu would have said far more. But Ainyáh ended the discussion with a silent gesture, drawing a hand across his throat, then resting it on the hilt of his bronze knife.

Behind him, T’érsite silently drew a goatskin bag from the dwindling stores they had carried ashore. “You had better get started if you want to reach the sanctuary before dark, qasiléyu,” he suggested. “This should be enough water to get you there. You can refill it at the sacred stream on the hilltop, before you come back.” Diwoméde nodded and moved to take the bag. But the older man shook his head and laid the heavy thing on the Qérayan’s younger, unmarked shoulder. Diwoméde’s eyes fell and his cheeks burned. But he said nothing.

Dáuniya frowned accusingly at T’érsite as she passed him. “Mélisha,” she said, refusing to speak to the laborer, “take care of Flóra for me, will you? The trip to the sanctuary would be too long and difficult for her.” In a whisper, she added, “And there is always the possibility that Odushéyu is right and the goddess will be angry. I do not want to put my baby in danger.”

Mélisha reached for the little girl. “Of course,” she cooed, adding in a murmur, “But, do not forget, now. Speak to the seeress about the queen’s mirror. If Lawodíka’s death was your doing, all of our lives may be at risk. Make sure that you are purified before you return to us. We must not carry a curse to our new home.”

St’énelo raised his hands high above his head. “May the gods be with you!”

The other travelers repeated both the phrase and the gesture.

The Qérayan youth took the lead toward the slopes of the mountain behind the bay, despite the heavy sack he carried. “I have made this pilgrimage before,” he cheerfully told his fellow emissaries. “That was with my mother, and it was not just once but three times that we came here.”