Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (32 page)

The queen was quiet when Dáuniya finished speaking. “Mother Morning?” she whispered, entranced. “Is she the rosy-fingered Dawn of Ak’áiwiya,
Pótniya
Eo? Or is she the Assúwan Sun Goddess of the Earth, the lady Arínna?”

Dáuniya sighed. “I cannot say what her secret name is, since I was never initiated. But, if you wish to come with us when we leave this land, you will have a chance to find out, and so will I. As soon as we have a good omen, one that is acceptable to the Assúwans in our party, we will begin our final, westward journey.”

Dáuniya had been something of an enigma to Diwoméde all along. But here it was clear that she was different, indeed. He had not allowed Odushéyu’s remark on her Assúwan name to move him, earlier. But now it began to trouble him. Which was her true name? Why had she never spoken of the matter to him before? Still more troubling was the sentiment behind her words to the queen. Since childhood, Diwoméde had been taught that honor was the greatest virtue, not simply that
areté
was a man’s duty, but that it was the best goal of all true Ak’áyan men. That ideal had once seemed to shine very brightly indeed and he had done everything that he could to attain it. He had been aware, in a vague way, that women did not fully share that shining vision of
areté
, and he had often heard Meneláwo’s gloomy statement that such honor and glory was a two-edged sword, wounding those who honored her as well as those who abhorred her. Its appeal had grown tarnished years before, in Diwoméde’s own eyes, as well. Still, Dáuniya had voiced not mere lack of enthusiasm, but outright condemnation of that ideal. Was that harsh judgment what she thought of him, too? Even more disturbing to the
qasiléyu
, what if she was right? If his own exploits in war were meaningless, then he was truly worthless, damaged by those pointless activities to the point that he was unwanted even as a slave, now incapable of fulfilling the duties of society’s lowest-rank.

But there was something still more disturbing than that to the
qasiléyu
as well. It crossed his mind that Dáuniya might be what St’énelo considered a true prophet, one called upon by the gods themselves, rather than one trained in religious duties by mortal priests. The Italian woman’s mother evidently had held some such role, far away to the west. Perhaps the gift of unearthly sight was in Dáuniya’s blood. The thought completely unnerved him. It would, however, explain his wife’s uncanny ability to spot liars and charlatans for what they were. He certainly could not doubt the veracity of the Italian Karména’s words, although he wished it were otherwise. There was that strange, otherworldly quality in the peculiar words that Dáuniya had quoted. He had not fully understood what she said. Even so, it was as if the truth of her statement had reverberated in his very soul. It was this quality, he suddenly realized, that had been missing from Ip’emédeya’s dramatic performance in the cavern above Put’ó.

His heart began to pound at the thought. In the coolness of the night, he began to shiver. Fear tingled through his limbs. The world had, indeed, turned upside down, as St’énelo had once said. In this unfamiliar world, where was his own place? Did he even have a role to play anymore? That was one question the priestess at Put’ó had been unable to answer. Diwoméde turned from his side to his back and stared up at the ceiling beams and thatch, trying to push that insistent thought away. He put his hand to his mouth to keep his teeth from chattering, as a still more chilling question came to him. Was there anything in this world for him, anything at all? Few of those who had fought in the Tróyan war now remained alive. Perhaps they had all been meant to die! Ainyáh had spoken of Érinu’s unquenchable thirst for revenge. Diwoméde still could not decide whether he should try to warn Orésta of that. Was that his own destiny – to die for those crimes committed so far away, so long ago? Perhaps it was fate that the last few survivors of Tróya should continue battling in that war until one side was completely exterminated, to the very last man! Was the ‘Elléniya’s prophecy true, then, as she and Meneláwo had feared? If so, then Ip’igéneya’s prophecy was certainly false. Neither war nor famine, neither drought nor disease would abate, after all. All of these disasters would only continue and, indeed, worsen, until the final catastrophic end of the whole world!

“Diwoméde,” Dáuniya whispered, startling him. “Are you awake?”

He sat up and looked toward her, inadvertently rousing Flóra. The little girl whimpered at his side, but settled back into a deep slumber without coming fully awake.

“Do you hear?” his wife asked, in a louder whisper. “Is someone coming this way?”

“Érinu?” Andrómak’e asked, in a quavering voice.
“Ai
, dear goddess!
Owái
, great Dodóna, Divine Mother, have mercy!”

Odushéyu had been snoring raucously, off and on. Now he, too, was roused. “What?” he muttered irritably, still only half awake.
“Ai gar
, Kaláura, milk the goat, yourself.” He rubbed his nose and squirmed, trying to find a more comfortable position.

Men’s voices, muffled and low, came through the door, alarming those within. Diwoméde scurried on all fours for the branch of dried laurel that he had dropped earlier. Dáuniya hurried at the same time toward her sleeping child. But as the Italian woman moved away from the bedside, Andrómak’e struggled to sit upright, reaching for Dáuniya’s hand. “Take Sqamándriyo,” the queen cried out in desperation, shattering the last remnants of sleep in the room. With unabashed sobs, Andrómak’e caught Dáuniya’s skirt, begging, “Please, Kareshátta, as a fellow orphan, as a sister in captivity, I implore you, take my son with you when you leave. There is nothing more that I can do, either for him or for myself. You must help us both. You must keep him safe. Swear that you will do this, or I will die!”

The bed chamber was suddenly a mass of confusion, as they all came fully awake and the door flew open. Flóra began crying loudly, her sleep interrupted. Dáuniya could not quite reach her, held back by Andrómak’e’s desperate grip on her skirt. Sqamándriyo rose, still drowsy, his arms flailing, shouting his uncle’s name, disturbed from his dream of being beaten. Receiving the young man’s blows, Odushéyu struck out equally blindly, calling on the gods to deliver him from the one-eyed
Kuklóq
. Mélisha stood and stumbled, directionless in the dark, not comprehending but wailing fearfully. As the door was flung wide, it barely missed Sqamándriyo but caught Diwoméde full in the face. The
qasiléyu
fell backward to the floor, stunned, and the laurel bough fell from his hand.

“What is it? What is wrong?” a man cried out in a voice that was at once familiar and yet strange. It was Ainyáh, Dáuniya realized, but in a state that she had never before witnessed. The Kanaqániyan was completely drunk. Staggering into the room, he called back over his shoulder, “Tushrátta, where is that torch?”

Confused by the uproar, Odushéyu snatched up the leafless branch that his companion had dropped. The It’ákan’s irascible nature flared up and he began striking the nearest targest, cursing all the while. Sqamándriyo, being the closest, took the brunt of the exile’s unthinking fury. When the youth backed away, his hands in front of his face, the old pirate gave Flóra several blows, too. The baby stopped her crying for a brief moment in surprise. Then she screamed with the lung-filling blast that galvanizes a mother, filling her with the strength of a divine
mainád
. At that sound, Dáuniya succeeded in freeing herself from Andrómak’e’s grasp and scooped up the child.

Odushéyu continued lashing out unthinkingly, next dealing several blows to Dáuniya’s back. Before he quite knew what he was doing, Diwoméde was on his feet, his fists pounding the older man’s head. In a short moment, the balding pirate was driven down to the ground. The violence of the
qasiléyu’s
response frightened the others in the chamber and they stumbled over one another trying to get away from the two men.

“By the gods, Diwoméde!” Odushéyu cried in genuine terror. “Has a
dáimon
possessed you?” Behind the It’ákan, Tushrátta and Ainyáh were demanding the same thing.

Diwoméde had no chance to answer. The noise had aroused virtually the entire village and a dozen stocky shepherds burst into Andrómak’e’s room. They were unclad, having risen as they woke from their beds. But each had thought to bring his light throwing-spear, a slender, wooden shaft capped with a shiny blade chipped from black obsidian. Close on the heels of the first Párpariyans, Érinu staggered in from his longhouse, as inebriated as his guests.

The identities of Ainyáh’s traveling companions were soon clear and the chieftain well remembered the hero who had killed a formidable ally of his father’s at Tróya, so long ago, and the deposed king who had brought about the death of his mother. Érinu’s rage then knew no bounds. He cursed Ainyáh, Tushrátta, and all their ancestors, calling down plagues and famines upon their heads for endless generations, for having brought these foul companions with them. Shouting for the Párpariyans to carry out his orders, he demanded that all four men, his guests as well as the hated Ak’áyans, be immediately put to death.

It was all that Andrómak’e and Dáuniya together could do to cling to the chieftain’s unsteady arms, and call his attention to the laurel branch. “You must not harm them!” the queen screamed, her voice high and shrill with panic. “They carry the sacrosanct tree. You are duty bound to protect their lives, my husband. You will bring down the wrath of all the gods if you ignore their symbol of peace!”

“Think of your forefathers!” Dáuniya shouted, trying to make herself heard over Flóra’s impassioned sobbing, “Think of your brothers! What is Qántili thinking now, in ‘Aidé? Would he be pleased to see you dishonor his
areté
, after he gave his very life for his sacred honor? Ainyáh, where are you? Tell him! Make him see reason!”

To the dismay of his traveling companions, Ainyáh was on his knees, vomiting, unable to help them face down the Párpariyans’ chieftain. Through copious tears, the queen begged her husband to send their visitors on their westward journey without delay. Filled with drink and with even more bitterness, Érinu ignored his wife and her desperate pleas. He rudely shoved Dáuniya aside. Diwoméde automatically moved to defend her, but Tushrátta held him back. “Do not move,
qasiléyu
,” the Lúkiyan warned, twisting the younger man’s scarred right arm behind his back. “You will only inflame him further. His men will not touch you as long as you are under the laurel. But they will not let you go, either.”

Érinu paced up and down the narrow chamber with long but uneven strides, shouting incoherently in his drunken rage. Andrómak’e, half-fainting, could no longer maintain her grip on his sleeve. She sank to the floor, weeping like a weary child, where Mélisha supported her. The chieftain roared furiously, “You are no longer my kinsman, Ainyáh, unless you satisfy the blood of my brothers. That blood calls for vengeance! No amount of bronze, horses, or slaves can answer that desire, that need. I will not let you go west, Ainyáh. I do not need to consult the gods for you, either, Tushrátta. The deities and their signs are here with me, not in the west or any other direction, I tell you! The fact that I, once a slave, am now a king in this place, should be proof enough, oracle enough, sign enough, that the gods side with me, and with me alone! And so must you!”

Shoving Flóra into Diwoméde’s free arm, his good arm, Dáuniya drew the other women to her side and trilled the ululating cry of the warrior maiden. It was the one sound that men of every continent recognized and heeded. In the silence that followed that call, the Italian woman spoke especially forcefully, her voice again taking on the ringing, supernatural tone of her mother, Karména, the sound that had so unnerved Diwoméde earlier that evening. “No, Érinu, the gods are not with you!” she cried. “Your plan is wrong. It is the sound of your own blood, not that of your brothers, that drives you to ever more vengeance! Paqúr, Qántili, Dapashánda, Lupákki, Pitqána, each one of them was a good man. I knew them, just as you did. But they are with Préswa now, down below the earth, in ‘Aidé. They are at peace in the womb of the world. They are at rest. So must your spirit be, Érinu, so must yours! If I have to, I will assemble all the women of Párpara to my side. We will burn every last one of your ships on the beaches. You must not sail against Ak’áiwiya. You cannot! War and glory and revenge have had their day. Now, that day must come to an end. It is time for peace at last. Let us go, I say, let us all go. Ak’áiwiya can never be yours, never!”

“How dare you, woman!” the chieftain bellowed, raising his fists unsteadily to strike her. But Dáuniya did not flinch. Nor did Érinu touch her, unable to stare down her burning eyes. Still seething, he dropped his arms. “I am a priest,” he growled at the small woman, still argumentative, looking to one side and the other. “I am trained to read the will of the gods in the flight of birds and the entrails of sheep. I say that blood must be honored. Only when Ak’áiwiya has paid for its crimes at Tróya can there be an to war.”

Once again, Dáuniya only cried out, “No! There can never be peace and no future at all if even one man insists on spilling more blood for it. A single push sets the deadly wheel of vengeance turning again. Once that happens, around and around that deadly mill-wheel turns, until it has crushed every last man, woman, and child in its path. Make peace with the morning and salute the sun at dawn. Sing praises to
Pótniya
Ushás. That is what your fallen kinsmen call for you to do.” Her voice had gradually become quieter. She began to plead. “Let us go now and journey toward that fine and lovely Bull Country, where the sun goes by night. Let us go to the west, where there is no one who remembers who fought at Tróya, or why.” Suddenly her demeanor changed again. She might have been a queen herself, or even a goddess as she imperiously threw out commands. “I demand this in the name of the very sun that rises above us by day, and in the spirit of the moon that shines on every land throughout the world! I command it, I say! The king of heaven, Thakkúra, commands it, the great god whom you Assuwans know as Tarqúnt, he who sends the thunder and lightning in the harshness of winter! By all the gods and goddesses, man, your own wife, whom you love above all others, commands it! Let us go! It is our destiny!”