Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (10 page)

The same day saw greater passion among Tróya's enemies.  A single, great fire served the warriors across the Sqámandro River, set far from the earthen rampart of the Ak'áyans' encampment.  The overlord ostentatiously declared that “Patróklo's funeral” would be held near the shore of the Inner Sea, the first of many ceremonies to be conducted that day.  After Ak'illéyu was satisfied, the rest of the fallen would follow Patróklo to the pyre with only a brief prayer that whatever offerings the T'eshalíyan made at the beginning of the day would be shared in the next world with the others.

The seer of the Ak'áyan army, Qálki, would be busy for once, Agamémnon told them, slitting the bellies of sacrificial animals and calling upon the divine wánasha of 'Aidé, queen of the land of the dead.  Throughout the day the prophet was to recite sacred formulas and chant the blessings that would send Ak'áyan souls on their way to Préswa's underworld realm.  Qálki's unearthly sight would be called upon that night as well, this also by Agamémnon's decree, to identify the scorched remains of the Ak'áyans burned in the largest pile of wood and kindling on Tróya's surrounding countryside.

The Ak'áyans heard the command and turned to obey without complaint, too tired of death to insist on better rites.  But Qálki had no qualms about speaking out.  "Having a single ceremony make do for this many at once is utterly barbaric, unworthy even of you, Agamémnon, you godless man!"

Even before the overlord could turn on the seer, the small prophet was silenced by a quick blow from a broad-shouldered foot soldier.  "There is no other way," T'érsite snapped.  "We have already become pack animals and bath pourers, as if we were captive women ourselves.  You would be happy enough to see us digging in the earth like so many rabbits, now.  But we will do as the high wánaks orders us.  When the fire burns down, you just tell us which bones are our kinsmen's.  We will wrap them in a little fat, if we can find it, and store them in jars.  As Agamémnon says, it will be good enough to hold a full ceremony and bury them properly when we get home."

"Yes," Odushéyu interjected, menacing the withered prophet with his own heavy fists.  "And when the remains have been removed, the men will heap up a great mound of earth over this place, to serve as a monument to the dead heroes.  Custom and the souls of the departed are satisfied with that.  So should you be, Qálki."

Agamémnon nodded with satisfaction at the harsh attitude his people were beginning to take toward the seer whom he so despised.  "The wood will be set in the Tróyan manner," the high wánaks commanded, directing the work himself in an ostentatious show of support for Ak'illéyu, a fellow king.  "Lay the biggest logs down first in a square of timber.  Build on that with successively smaller logs, with the kindling on the very top.  Make it high.  I want an impressive flame."

"This is monstrous, completely uncivilized!" Qálki cried.  "It is hardly acceptable to send a single man to the underworld that way, but it is especially unsuitable for an Ak'áyan champion.  It would be far more impressive and honorable and only a little more work to dig a proper tomb and line it with stones."

T'érsite once more came forward and shoved the fuming seer aside as he carried an armful of branches to the spot.  "That is enough from you, old man."  The prophet protested no more aloud, watching with a frown.

In Odushéyu's ear, T'érsite added as he passed, "Qálki is not far wrong about one thing.  This is an unnecessarily large stack for a single champion.  In fact, this is not even a good way to build a fire."

The mariner king agreed, keeping his voice low.  "If it were up to me, we would give Ak'illéyu's man no special honors.  This is hardly fair, holding a full rite for one man when so many died, and honoring one whose loyalty was suspect at that!  But, we must be practical.  We have to humor Ak'illéyu.  For now.  Remind the men of that when you hear them grumbling."

Agamémnon sent his tallest qasiléyu, Aíwaks, to assemble the troops about the stacked wood, once he was satisfied that it was large enough.  "No man is to remain in his hut today," the overlord commanded through his officer.  "We must make an indelible impression on Ak'illéyu with this funeral, if we are to keep his mind and his spear with us.  Patróklo's funeral must be the finest event any man has ever witnessed.  Even the wounded must come.  Their friends or kinsmen will carry them.  Afterward, we will use the same stack of wood and the same offerings for our own dead kinsmen.  But do not let the madman know about this."

In the Kep'túriyan section of the encampment, Idómeneyu and his men bridled at that command.  The wánaks of the great southern island refused to attend.  "Where were these P'ilístas when Qántili was riding his chariot on the battlefield and we were dying in droves?" Idómeneyu demanded.  "Waiting in their huts is where!  No, we owe the T'eshalíyans no honor.  We hold Ak'illéyu responsible for the deaths of our own brothers.  We will stay in our tents and let the north mourn its own."

Aíwaks took offense.  "I am a P'ilísta myself, by birth!" he cried, widening his pale eyes, knowing that it would threaten the southern islander’s sense of the Evil Eye.  "If you do not honor Ak'illéyu, no northerner will attend Diwoméde's funeral or any of the other Zeugelátes."

Idómeneyu remained adamant.  "Diwoméde is not dead, not yet.  He is only wounded and he is not a Kep'túriyan in any case.  We will hold our own simple rites when the T'eshalíyans are finished.

Most of the feather-capped men of the north came at Aíwaks's summons, although some only arrived after considerable arguing.  Meneláwo came on his own, walking slowly and leaning on a spear for support.  The big qasiléyu gathered Agamémnon's own Argive troop leaders, too, carrying Diwoméde, who was burning with fever, on his wide shoulders.  But Kep'túr's wánaks was not alone in declining Agamémnon's invitation.  Aíwaks was forced to return to Agamémnon beside the big wood pile and admit that he had been unable to entice either of the more powerful southern kings, Idómeneyu of Kep'túr, or Néstor of Mesheníya.  The overlord let the tall man know he was disappointed in him.  Then Agamémnon turned to Odushéyu's clever tongue.

"Do you think the rest of us do not remember Ak'illéyu's long absence?" the It'ákan asked Idómeneyu.  "We have no more love for him than you do.  But Agamémnon needs him as an ally.  We all need his strong right arm.  Remember, king Alakshándu has many sons.  Only the one has died.  Paqúr, the oldest, still lives and he was the one who led the attack on Meneláwo's city, starting this war in the first place.  Let us at least make a show of mourning Patróklo so that Ak'illéyu will not desert our cause again.  When the war is over, we can reveal our true contempt for him."

Idómeneyu ran his hard fingers through his gray-streaked hair and spat.  "Ak'illéyu is a fighter, one of the best.  That is true.  But he is a typical northerner, full of himself.  He will have to hold the biggest funeral ever known and even then he will not be satisfied.  No, next he will demand that he be elected commander of the expedition.  And I will follow no half-barbarian P'ilísta.  How many ships did he bring here?  Fifty?  I may not be king of the strongest or wealthiest realm in Ak'áiwiya, but I brought a good many more than Ak'illéyu did.  And I have lost men of my own.  Let him mourn his qasiléyu without Kep'túr."

"I have no intention of following Ak'illéyu, either," Odushéyu said with pretended offense.  "Even I would not stoop that low.  No, Agamémnon is the commander of this expedition.  We elected him overlord because he brought the most ships.  That has not changed and it will not.  And it is Agamémnon who demands your presence at the funeral.  He demands it for his brother's sake, for the sake of this expedition."  When Idómeneyu still hesitated, Odushéyu added somberly, "If you refuse to go, you will be declaring war on Lakedaimón and on Argo, Ak'áiwiya's most powerful kingdom."

Idómeneyu looked around at his men, their numbers diminished, their bodies marked by the cruelties of war.  "By the gods, I do not like this," he growled.  "But Meneláwo is my friend and Agamémnon is my overlord.  Very well, we will go to the funeral and we will mourn appropriately.  But it will be our own kinsmen we lament."  Convinced by the same arguments, white-haired Néstor led his Mesheníyans out of their tents, thinking of their own dead.

aaa

Warriors of every Ak'áyan kingdom assembled around the woodpile, late in the day.  They came, dressed as if for battle, by Agamémnon's command.  The T'eshalíyans harnessed Ak'illéyu's team to his battered chariot, the last one that remained intact, and laid Patróklo's linen-wrapped corpse, bound in a fetal position, in the cart.  In a procession, the men of his small, northern land moved out, Ak'illéyu leading the horses.  Aíwaks met them at the edge of the broad woodpile and took the body on his big shoulder.  "I will carry him to the center, wánaks Ak'illéyu," he said.  "Let me do this one last thing for him.  He was my friend as well as yours."

Ak'illéyu glared with red-rimmed eyes at the big man, for a moment.  But he accepted the other man's offer, and followed Aíwaks to the center of the wooden pile.  He stopped the giant from setting down his burden, frowning.  "We need more wood," Ak'illéyu called and low-ranked P'ilístas brought smaller branches and twigs to him.  The prince filled in the empty spaces among the logs with the smaller wood, arranging them with the utmost care.

"By the gods," Idómeneyu complained quietly.  "He thinks he is a mother bird making a nest."

"Keep your voice down," Meneláwo urged, leaning on his friend to keep from falling.  "Let him do as he pleases now.  When the funeral is over, he will fight beside us for revenge and we will finally take Tróya."  He wiped the sweat from his fevered forehead, wondering if he would live long enough to see the city's gates open.

The Kep'túriyan wánaks looked toward the west, at the dark waters of the Inner Sea.  The Ak'áyans’ ships remained in Tróya's harbor, as they had the past month, anchored, the sails packed away.  With regret, Idómeneyu thought of the cables of twisted flax, undoubtedly rotting away.  There were surely vermin in all those narrow hulls, too, gnawing holes in the rough linen of the sails.  Who could tell what condition the wooden hulls themselves were in?  After sitting in the salt water this long, who knew whether they would even be sea-worthy when the time came to leave?  Yes, Tróya had to be taken soon.  Otherwise, the Ak'áyans would be trapped, here on the parched Wilúsiyan plain, forced to winter in a land that had not sown a crop of grain this autumn.  The army might starve before this war ended. 

"I am still not convinced this man is worth all the trouble he brings," the island king said.  But his voice was quiet, as Meneláwo had desired.

Unaware of the muttering among the men of southern Ak'áiwiya, Ak'illéyu commanded his T'eshalíyans to cut their hair.  "Each of my men will offer Patróklo's soul the sign of friendship."  His men obediently removed their feathered caps and took down their hair, which they had earlier knotted atop their heads.  They set bronze razors or knives to their dark curls, each man cutting a single lock and laying it on the corpse.

Ak'illéyu was the last to do this duty.  He stood astride his foster brother’s body for a long time, his deep-set eyes misting, thinking of past events.  The other troop leaders looked at each other, shaking their heads.  Even Aíwaks began to fidget.  He cleared his throat several times, hoping to move things along.  The prince eventually raised his eyes toward the western sea and sliced away every tangled lock until the hair on his head fell no lower than his ears in a ragged fringe.  "Spérk'eyu, you worthless river," Ak'illéyu said in a harsh croak, as he severed one hank of hair after another.  "My father swore to you that we would not cut our hair until you brought us safely home.  Wánaks Péleyu said he would give you fifty sheep, let their blood run on your sacred banks till your waters were stained red.  Do you remember that, divine bull, you faithless god?  You did not do what he asked.  You would not keep my brother safe.  Spérk'eyu, you have betrayed me.  You will receive nothing from me now, and nothing from any man under my command."