Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (41 page)

“Why do we not delay it just one more night?” T’érsite suggested. “That way the child will receive his name on a lucky third day.”

T’éti crossed her and stared at him in disapproval. “But it is the divine Twain, Mother and Maiden, who are the presiding deities of children.”

The Argive shrugged his shoulders, a bit disappointed at having been forced to give in on this point. “Have it your own way,” he grumbled, standing and wiping his greasy hands on his thighs. “Just to show that there are no bad feelings, I will stand in for the father.”

But again he was firmly pushed out of the forefront. “Ainyáh’s son will take on that function,” the white-haired queen insisted. “It is only right as this is a Kanaqániyan custom, and he is the closest kinsman.”

Askán proudly took Ilishabát’s reluctant baby from her arms. The youth took the now-squalling child not just three but a full seven times around the campfire, to the astonishment of the watching Ak’áyans. At every circuit, Ilishabát herself recited the number in her native language. At the end, Askán paused, struggling to reestablish his grip on the little boy, who was squirming for all he was worth.

“What kind of number is seven?” Odushéyu demanded of no one in particular. “It does not have any threes in it at all!”

T’éti agreed. “If you wanted to go around that many times, why not go twice more and make it a proper nine? Then you would have shown respect to the newest number and made three threes.”

“Askán’s action is perfectly fitting,” Ilishabát pronounced with her regal air. “I will have you know that seven is the most sacred number there is. It is the number of stars in the most honorable of the constellations, the great Eagle, and I will hear no complaints.” Taking back her child, she quickly stopped his fussing by putting him to her ample breast. “My own name happens to mean Divine Seven, so I should know better than anyone about holy numbers, I should think. Now, what shall I call the son of my dear, departed husband, my lord Pumayatún?”

Annoyed by her manner, neither the Ak’áyans nor the Assúwans offered a single suggestion. But Askán promptly called out, “Kanyáh, the Strength of the God!”

“
Ayá
, that is much too proud,” Ilishabát frowned, looking down at the now placid baby. His wide, brown eyes met hers with that look of purest love that only the suckling babe can bestow. His mother could not help smiling as she returned the look, melting the hearts of the crowd of foreigners watching the pair, despite their earlier annoyance. “I told Ainyáh that he should change his own name, for that very reason,” she went on, though the haughty tone of her voice had now become gentle. “I warned him that Fountain-of-the-God would only attract Astárt’s envious eye.”

Offended by her rebuff, Askán retorted, “Then I suppose that you do not approve of my name, either? Is Possesses-Strength too proud as well?”

Looking up from her own son to Ainyáh’s, Ilishabát’s gaze and voice became sharp once more. “Is that what that means? It does not sound presumptuous, no, since you ask me. But I assumed it was Strongly Possessed and I thought it referred to the goddess Astárt taking away your mother’s spirit when you were just a little child.”

T’érsite slapped his thighs with a groan and a curse.
“Ai gar
, Préswa drag you both three or four times around the twin mountains of the underworld when you die! Never mind these boring language lessons! Just put a halter on the calf and be done with it!”

Ignoring the outburst, Ilishabát stroked her infant’s plump cheek with maternal gentleness. “I shall call him, Ilimilík, the God is King.”

“Ilimilík,” her daughter, Hányah, repeated at her side.

“
Ai
, what a mouthful!” Mélisha said into her hand, disapproving, “and for such a sweet, little lamb!”

CHAPTER 12

ETALU

Dáuniya glanced around at the rising tension in the faces of her fellow refugees. “Ilimilík is a fine name,” she announced defiantly. She presented the child’s mother with an amulet for the baby, a tiny bag of the softest leather to hang around the infant’s neck on a freshly spun strand of undyed wool. “There is a clove of garlic and a pinch of sea salt in it,” she explained, “just like Flóra wears. That way you know it is effective.”

Ilishabát thanked her with a somewhat artificial smile, for, although Flóra had recovered from her earlier cough, she had been rather listless since their departure from Párpara. The efficacy of the charm had yet to be proven to the Kanaqániyan woman’s full satisfaction. Still, it was an important gesture, as the gift was something of a peace offering.

Now cradled in Diwoméde’s lap, Flóra pointed a pudgy fist in little Ilimilík’s direction. “Baby,” she announced, mimicking Ilishabát’s solemn tone. Both mothers laughed. Smiles began to soften the faces of many of the other refugees.

Ilishabát told Flóra, “Ilimilík,” pronouncing the name very slowly and carefully.

Flóra hesitated, opening and closing her mouth several times before she tried it herself. “Imi…iwi…mimi,” she struggled.

Dáuniya knelt beside her little girl and told her, “Listen to me, Flóra.” She repeated the name again still more slowly, a syllable at a time, for her daughter to repeat. “I-li-mi-lik.”

“Iwu…Iwi…”

This time, many of the Ak’áyans joined in the laughter as the two-year-old tried the difficult name. Ilishabát and her children were again securely part of the traveling band.

Through the deepening twilight, Flóra continued to indicate the baby and struggle with his name. By the next day, both Dáuniya and Ilishabát were quite tired of the continuous repetition. “At least you will be in another ship today,” Dáuniya muttered to the other mother, as they proceeded toward the ferry boats. “I will have to listen to her say it all day long!”

As if to affirm her own mother’s words, Flóra again pointed to Ilimilík, who was clinging to his mother’s hair and sucking his thumb. “Iwi,” she said, “Iwu, Uwu, Uwi. Baby.”

Diwoméde took the girl from his wife’s hip as she climbed into the boat. The
qasiléyu
had recognized his wife’s gesture for what it was. He wanted to amend their own relationship by making another such gesture, himself. Looking at the weariness in the Italian woman’s face, he considered how he might best demonstrate his acceptance of Flóra as their daughter. Handing the child back to her mother, Diwoméde suggested, “Make it easier for her, Dáuniya. Listen, Flóra. Yúlu, the baby’s name is Yúlu.”

“Yúwu!” Flora repeated with delight. “Yúwu! Baby! Baby Yúwu! Yúwu, Mama, Yúwu!” As she announced it again and again, Dauniya bent her brows in puzzlement at Diwomede. She was pleased with his solution to this little problem. But how had he come by that nickname?

He told her quietly, “If a Little Tróyan is Tróylu, then little Ilimilík must be something like Yúlu, no?”

Ilishabát, yielding her child to board the small boat in her turn, was perfectly happy to make Yúlu the little boy’s nickname and be done with it. But for the rest of the day, Dáuniya turned again and again to look searchingly at Diwoméde, above her, at the steering oar. Where had he heard about her long-ago Tróylu? She had never mentioned the youth to Diwoméde, she knew. The fact troubled her.

When she confied this anxiety to Ilishabát that evening, the Kanaqániyan woman suggested, “Perhaps Ainyáh said something to him while we were in Párpara. He knew about your Tróylu, did he not?”

A cold and prickling fear crept over Dáuniya’s limbs. “It is possible. He and my husband certainly began spending a great deal of time together while we were there. Both spoke often of the Tróyan war. It was in that war that Tróylu died. But how much does Diwoméde know? Is it only the name, do you think?”

Ilishabát could not answer. “Just ask him,” she suggested.

“I am afraid to,” the Italian woman admitted, uneasy at the thought. How much should she confess to this Assúwan? “What if he…”

“Andrómak’e called you by another name, did she not?” the Kanaqániyan woman observed, interrupting when her new friend hesitated. “Has Diwoméde asked you about that?”

“No,” Dáuniya answered, uncertain what to make of it. She had forgotten about that, so natural had it seemed at the time. But now that, too, troubled her. “That is not exactly the same thing, is it?”

Ilishabát frowned at her. Her voice took on that sharp quality that so many of the Ak’áyans found distasteful. “I meant that you should bring it up, as a way to get him talking. Perhaps then he would either ask you questions, or reveal what he knew about the other matter.”

Dáuniya responded only, “Perhaps,” trying to sound unconcerned. She preferred to think about the subject alone and she spoke no more to Ilishabát.

The trip to the crossing point took six days. They were long days, with a great deal of hard work for the men at the oars. Blisters seemingly rose everywhere – on their hands from the oars themselves, on their shoulders and backs from the glaring sun, and on their bare behinds from the rubbing of the wooden benches. The women had their own difficulties, preparing meals from the dwindling provisions. There was too little time to both grind flour and gather firewood at the close of the day, once they were on shore. So they did only the second, boiling porridge for the morning meal, and eating nothing but roasted barleycorn in the late evening, forgoing the bread they preferred, altogether. Between rounds of fetching water from the nearest spring and rubbing their fathers’ tired limbs, the older children complained that their teeth ached from the hard chewing that the nightly meal entailed. Everyone was irritable and short-tempered, hoping for a quick passage to the end of their journey.

Ak’áyans and Assúwans all were somewhat heartened by the uneventful nature of the journey thus far, even so. They began to believe that they might survive the dangerously late crossing, despite everything. But the situation was not truly well, and they knew that in their hearts, too. Ainyáh had not recovered from the mysterious blow that had felled him. Ilishabát grew ever more solicitous of him as the days passed, taking his head in her lap to laboriously spoon thin gruel and wine into his slack mouth, a little at a time. His eyes showed his gratitude and revealed his still indomitable spirit. But his body remained rebellious. The whole of his left side was as if turned to stone. His arm soon could not be pried from his ribs, nor his left leg straightened completely. Both the limbs on that side grew permanently cold, as well as set firmly in their odd, twisted positions. His jaw twisted, too, tightly shut on the left side and scarcely opened on the right side. He could wiggle his toes and fingers on his right side, but even that effort seemed to exhaust him. With each passing day, he grew ever weaker, despite innumerable prayers, charms, and promises to the gods and
dáimons
of the heavens and of the underworld. No one aboard the ships took this long decline more to heart than Ilishabát, not even the old man’s son.

At the last stop on the Párpariyan shore, it was this woman’s turn to be troubled by the count of days. “If we leave in the morning, we will be crossing the
ítalo
sea on the seventh,” she said, although it was almost a question. “But if what Ainyáh said before is true, we will not reach land again until the eighth. I do not like the sound of that. It seems impious to sail on the day of such a sacred number as the seventh. The rest of you may know nothing about the gods of Kanaqán, nor do you believe in the power of my lady of the seas, the gracious Astárt. But remember, it was a Kanaqániyan who first led you to this land. If the gods will it, a Kanaqániyan will lead you on to the west, as well.”

“If the gods will it,” others repeated, but it was with resignation rather than the hope that burned, still bright, in the heart of the woman.

She went on, “Ainyáh knows the goddess and her ways, as well as he knows the salt waters themselves. You should respect his homeland and our goddess. Stay here and rest through the seventh day. Devote yourselves to prayers and offerings to the Waters Above and the Waters Below. His continuing illness can only be a sign that someone among us has angered the goddess. We must appease her before we resume our journey.”

“By all the
maináds
and
dáimons
, I have had my fill of numbers, threes as well as sevens!” T’érsite complained. “In all my years, I have never heard of a seven anyway, whether lucky or unlucky! Seven is nothing but an ordinary number, no better and no worse than eight or five or eleven. I say we press on as quickly as we can. If we do not make landfall soon we will end up wintering right here, next door to the north wind! Then only the gods know what will become of us!”

To the surprise of the low-born man, the other Ak’áyans unanimously called for the omens to be taken and read. They had never heard of the holiness of the seventh day before, any more than he had, but with such an important thing as a sea crossing looming, they were not willing to take any chances on offending any gods, goddesses,
maináds
or
dáimons
, familiar or foreign, even if they had just come into existence. However, for this important duty, St’énelo, until then their make-shift priest, was no longer able to perform his usual function. His vision was too cloudy and his body so wracked with coughs and pain, that he needed assistance even to rise to his knees and relieve himself. That in itself almost seemed a bad sign, one telling the group that they should forego the sea crossing altogether. The women briefly consulted among themselves before designating T’éti the new official priestess of the expedition. The old woman’s sharp tongue and her regal air had offended the Assúwans among them and not a few of the Ak’áyans, too. Nevertheless, there seemed to be no alternative.