Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (4 page)

After praying, most of the women drifted away, to well-built homes on the terraced hill, or to rough shacks hastily erected in the citadel's broad streets.  Five remained in the tower sanctuary when the others had gone, their torn robes dyed with Kanaqán's famed purple, dust and ashes spread over embroidered flowers and divine symbols in many-colored threads.  The youngest of the five clung, weeping, to one whose hair was completely white.  "Let us go back to the palace now, mother," the princess sobbed.  But the oldest woman seemed not to hear her, waving her age-spotted hands before the two columns.

"Yes," said the tallest, her long, black hair highlighted with gray at the temples, putting her arms around the plump, aged mourner.  "Come, Mother.  You must try to eat something.  Qántili was our brother, not just your son.  We mourn him as much as you do.  But we cannot surrender to our grief.  We have the rest of our family to think of.  And remember that you are still Wilúsiya's queen, the lady Eqépa.  You must be strong and show the women of lesser rank how to bear up under suffering."

The small queen shook her head.  Tears streamed over the scratches on her wrinkled cheeks, the salt stinging the self-inflicted wounds.  "I cannot eat, Kréyusa, not until my poor child's body is returned to us."  She gave a high, keening wail, her hands to her face, rocking from side to side.  The cry roused her younger daughter, who clung all the more tightly to her, shedding ever more tears.  Suddenly, so quickly that her daughters could not ask what she was doing, the old woman rose and pushed them all away.  With grief-strengthened feet she hurried from the tower sanctuary and headed for the gates alongside the structure.

Her daughters ran after her, catching her arms with their hands.  "What are you doing?" Kréyusa asked.  "Have the maináds caught you, Mother?  Are you out of your mind?  You cannot go out there."

"Let me go," the bereaved woman begged, struggling to free herself of the princesses' hands.  "Owái, if no man is brave enough to approach those godless Ak'áyans, I must go myself!  I cannot let poor Qantíli's soul wander in torment.  I must have his body to burn on the pyre.  People say it was Ak'illéyu who killed my child.  He is a man like any other.  He will listen to an old woman.  He must follow the custom."

"No, no!" Kréyusa cried and her sisters echoed her.  "You cannot go out there.  Ak'illéyu is a madman.  He has the heart of a dáimon.  He will kill you.  We know how you feel, Mother.  All of us have lost children, except for Piyaséma.  Owái, she will learn how it feels soon enough!  Come back to the palace with us."

Eqépa lashed out at her daughters.  She slapped their restraining hands and would not be comforted.  "Owái, my son, my son!  Why could you not die where I could hold you in my arms?  Lord Poseidáon, Divine Horse, why have you done this to me?  You should have taken the Ak'áyans to 'Aidé when they were sailing here in their ships.  Why did you let them reach our shores safely?  Ai, Dáwan Anna, you are a heartless goddess!  What have you done to my child?"

Kréyusa was reduced to tears by her mother's raving and two of her sisters wept with her.  But one princess remained dry-eyed.  She took her mother by the shoulders and shook the old woman, speaking harshly.  "Ai, Mother, what are you saying?  Do not curse the gods!  Remember, you have other sons besides Qántili, four of them still living, and four daughters as well.  If you anger Tróya's divine father and mother, you condemn us all to miserable fates."

The queen's anger subsided and she fell to her knees, wracked with sobs.  "Owái, what more can the gods do to us?  Kashánda, my child, you are too harsh.  You saw your own children die, I know, but there was the funeral to comfort you.  We all cut a lock of hair to send with them, for remembrance, and we slaughtered sheep and burned many fine gifts so that they would fare well in the land of the dead.  Owái, but I have lost my dear son and I cannot even send his spirit to 'Aidé!  Why will you not let me go to Ak'illéyu?  What does it matter if he kills me?  We are all lost, anyway.  All Tróya is doomed.  You said so yourself when the goddess possessed you, that terrible night when Qántili died.  Tróya is fated to burn to the ground."

Her youngest daughter knelt beside her, still crying, and embraced her gently.  "Please, Mother, please, for my sake!  Come back to the palace.  I will help you make figurines of clay to please the goddess.  We will offer Dáwan our finest robes, too.  We will fasten them to the sacred pillars with candle wax, to soften heaven's anger.  Then perhaps the goddess will relent and make Ak'illéyu give Qántili back to us.  Dáwan Anna is a mother, too, is she not?  She will have to listen to a mother’s plea, in the end."

The queen's grief was not lessened.  But she had no more strength for lamentations.  Wearily, she nodded her white head and allowed Piyaséma to lead her back up the hillside toward the royal buildings.

Kréyusa wiped her dark eyes and looked at her two remaining sisters.  "Come, Laqíqepa and Kashánda.  We should return to the sanctuary and make another offering, ourselves.  Let us expiate the sins of our people before the goddesses, in case our mother's words have offended lady Dáwan and her dreaded daughter."  The other two princesses agreed.

Back in the sanctuary, they poured more wine and raised their hands in respectful salutes.  When they were done, brushing her graying hair from her face, Laqíqepa said bitterly, "That 'Elléniyan woman is the cause of all our troubles.  "Owái, Kréyusa, you and I never dreamed that our lives would become so hard.  Because that foreign woman is our brother's wife, we must treat her well.  But how difficult that is!  Since she came to Tróya, we have had no peace at all.  My oldest son, my dearest child, is just now grown to manhood, after so much sickness and so many injuries!  How many times I brought goat's milk here to the goddesses so that they would let him live through another winter, so the cough or the fever would not take him!  Now that he is grown big and strong at last, he must risk his life in this war and all for that evil, foreign woman!  Antánor feels the same as I do, too.  If only our father would listen to him and send the 'Elléniyan away!  Then things could be as they were."

"Yes.  Then poor Wóinone could come back to live with us," Kréyusa sighed.  "It cannot be easy for her to see the 'Elléniyan woman living in luxury on the hilltop, while she, the true wife, lives in poverty by the back gate.  I do not understand how our brother can treat her so badly after she gave him three fine sons."

"The 'Elléniyan must have bewitched Paqúr," said their other sister, grim-faced.

"Yes," Kréyusa agreed.  "She must have.  But, Kashánda, you should not have spoken so roughly to our mother.  I know how she feels, as Laqíqepa does.  And so should you.  I have a son, myself, and I can only hope I will see him grow to manhood.  It is so hard to watch your little ones die.  Ainyáh grieves for our lost babies, too, but for a man it is not the same."

Kashánda hung her head, more to hide the harsh light in her eyes than from shame.  "You are right, Kréyusa.  Men cannot understand the depth of pain in a mother's heart when fate is cruel to her children.  When I was a child, I did not understand, either.  And when I heard the legends telling of how Mother Dáwan roamed the world, mourning her lost child, I thought it was all foolishness.  People go to the land of death all the time.  How could Dáwan's grief for her child be so terrible that it would threaten every living thing in the world?  Owái, when I lost my own boys and my dear husband, then I understood.  Still, no matter how deeply we grieve, that does not give us the right to curse the gods.  Nothing gives us that right."

Sounds of angry voices outside penetrated the tower sanctuary, interrupting the sisters' conversation.  "They are squabbling over food," Kréyusa concluded, nodding in the direction of the noise.  "The shepherds have had to slaughter their livestock, either to feed their families, or because they had no fodder for the animals.  Even our loyal islanders cannot spirit in enough grain for us all.  Ai, and even in the palace there is no more meat."

Laqíqepa sighed and shook her graying head.  "The city is too small to house this many for so long.  Owái, sweet Lady, when will our troubles end?"

Kréyusa's eyes rose to the pale, cloudless sky.  "It is late for sowing the grain.  If we have to wait another month, the shoots will come up too late.  Frost will take them and there will be famine next year.  Even if the war ends today, the goddess will not bless us.  She is angry, because we missed the proper festival time.  Dáwan will blight the crops and strike down the surviving flocks of sheep.  Our suffering will not end soon, Laqíqepa.  It has only begun."

Color rose in Kashánda's cheeks and she raised her fierce eyes to her sister's face.  "Ai, do not say that, Kréyusa!  Such words attract the Evil Eye.  Praise the power of the goddess and make more offerings, if you are afraid.  Only a priestess has the right to foretell the future."

"It does not take unearthly sight to know that these are evil times," Kréyusa snapped.  "Do not try to blame these misfortunes on me, sister!"

Laqíqepa stepped between the two women.  "I am the oldest here, so listen to me, both of you.  Give the gods their due.  Make prayers and offerings.  Then leave the rest to fate.  I know, sometimes that is hard to do.  But no matter what trials we face, at least we have the comfort of knowing that everything will be all right in the end.  You may have been too young, but I remember the omens at Paqúr's birth.  The fire by the altar burned so brightly that day, it could only mean that Mother Dáwan loved him.  And our mother dreamed of flames engulfing all of Tróya.  To dream of fire is always a good omen.  Paqúr was named for that sign.  His name means ‘fire’ in the Náshiyan tongue, you know.  Our fates are bound to be good, as long as we have Paqúr to lead us."

"That is not what Ainyáh says," Kréyusa argued.  "My husband says that our allies will all melt away, now that Qántili is gone.  It was Qántili who had the hearts of the soldiers.  I would not be surprised if half of our own people turn against us, too," she added, ignoring her older sister's frown.  "They care nothing for Paqúr, regardless of how Lady Dáwan feels."

A strange gleam came to Kashánda's unsmiling, dark eyes, a look that frightened her sisters.  "When they came from steep Wilúsiya," Kashánda chanted, her feet beginning to move in an inspired dance.  "On that day the three goddesses spun Tróya's thread of fate.  They entwined it with the hero's destiny.  When Tróya's champion 'Éktor dies, the world's misfortunes will begin."

Quickly, Laqíqepa took Kréyusa's arm.  "Come, sister, we must get back to the palace and make sure the serving women are performing their duties as they should.  And we must speak to our widowed sister-in-law.  Andrómak'e must help us pray for the return of Qántili's body."

aaa

The matter of prince Qántili's corpse was on the minds of the Ak'áyan troop leaders, too, that morning.  In Agamémnon's great tent, the bearded troop leaders met in assembly.  "When we are finished here," the big king was saying, holding a bronze-capped spear before him, "I will order the men to begin dealing with the dead.  Idómeneyu, you will lead your Kep'túriyans to the forests to gather firewood for the funeral pyres.  Néstor, you will direct your Mesheníyans to collect the Ak'áyan corpses on this side of the river.  Menést'eyu, your Attikans will organize all the northerners to bring in our casualties from the Tróyan side of the Sqámandro River.  Panaléyo, your Qoyotíyans will be the only P'ilístas who do not follow Menést'eyu.  I need your expertise here in camp, repairing the gate and the rampart walls."  As he spoke, he indicated each man with his head, keeping his linen-wrapped arm close to his body.