Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (42 page)

He paused to let the enormity of the situation sink in.  “And what is the reason for all this suffering?  I will tell you – a woman, just one ‘Elléniyan priestess queen.  Do the Wilúsiyans truly love this ‘Elléniya so much that they are willing to sacrifice all their children to her?”

“Get on with the agreement!” Alakshándu shouted over the sound of dissent reverberating through the mégaron.  “I have heard enough of your speech-making!  We know what the situation is!”

Ainyáh continued with greater confidence, knowing then that the elder supported him.  “We must give this evil woman back to the Ak’áyans.  She is a curse from the gods.  Let the Ak’áyans suffer the disasters that follow in her wake.  We must reconcile ourselves with our enemies in order to survive.  Is your memory really so short, king Alakshándu?  Have you forgotten that we used to trade with these same people of the Inner Sea?  We bought their grain and flax and sold them our horses and tin.  Wilúsiya was always prosperous, even wealthy, because of that trade.  It could be that way again.  Give ‘Elléniya back to the Ak’áyans.”

A great shout came from the assembled elders.  Rising to their feet as a group, they cried with one voice, “Ransom Tróya!”

Dapashánda stood and drew his sword with his good hand.  “Ransom?!” he shouted, incredulous.  “Do I hear all of you correctly?  Can you really be saying that we should pay ransom to the Ak’áyans?”

Ainyáh raised his voice just as loudly in response.  “Yes!  They already negotiated for ‘Elléniya’s return and you refused, once.  It is too late to ask them for ransom now.  They have us cornered.  We are without allies, without food stores.  If we do not give them presents to placate them at this point, they will take those same gifts from us by force, soon enough!”  Again, the chamber echoed with shouts of agreement from the assembled elders.

Pale with dread, Érinu rose and waved his arms for quiet.  “What are you saying, Ainyáh?  We have no more treasure to give!  We sent the bulk of our riches away at the beginning of the war to our allies, to buy their assistance.  What little we kept for ourselves has already gone to ransom our kinsmen, alive or dead, or to accompany them to the underworld.  Even if we were willing to pay more, what could we possibly give?”

Alakshándu snorted in disgust, clutching the faded robes that covered his knobby knees.  “Answer that, you miserable excuse for a mercenary!”

The Kanaqániyan took a deep break and clenched his fists, maintaining his composure only with a struggle.  “Our shrines still have rich ornaments...”

Raising his sword as if for combat, Dapashánda shouted furiously, “No!”

“That would be sacrilege!” Érinu cried in horror.

But the rest of the council voiced their assent without hesitation.  “We cannot win this war by force of arms,” one after another pointed out.  “Honor is a fine thing, but survival is more important.  Give those godless Ak’áyans whatever they want, whatever they demand.  Just get them away from holy Tróya before all the gods abandon us, like our mortal allies did.”

At length, Alakshándu was forced to listen.  His face, red with fury at the start, soon lost all its color.  He slumped on his throne and hung his head, no more vigor in his limbs than in his garments.  “All right,” he said with a grimace.  “I will give in to you.  The gods have forgotten me.  Now, my friends desert me, too.  No one supports me but the least of my sons.  This is an evil day for me and for all of Wilúsiya.”  Tears fell from his eyes and he dropped his trembling hands in his lap.  “But I will do as you wish.  Ainyáh, release Antánor from his chambers.  Find out what it will cost us to get the barbarians out of our country.”  His voice had fallen to a whisper by the final words.

Ainyáh nodded.  Stiffly, he left the mégaron.  Outside, in the corridor where the others could not see, he leaned, shivering, against the cool stone of the walls, and wiped his sweating forehead with a deep sigh.  “Goddess, be with me,” he whispered.  “Am I doing the right thing?  Guide me, Astárt.”  When at last the trembling left his knees, he walked through the gloomy corridors toward the storerooms where Alakshándu’s oldest son-in-law was imprisoned.

Érinu met him in the dark halls before he reached his destination.  “I will go with the two of you to the camp,” the young prince told him.

Ainyáh stared harshly at the young priest, trying to decipher his intent.  “Come on then,” the warrior said, leading the way to Antánor’s prison cell.

aaa

On the following morning, Antánor, Ainyáh, and Érinu ate their morning meal with Agamémnon and his lawagétas.  That gathering, too, lacked the vigor and enthusiasm of earlier days.  Alongside their wine, the troop leaders sipped from poppy-shaped flasks, nursing old wounds that remained inflamed despite the treatment of their best surgeon.  Meneláwo had grown thin and his face was ashen.  One arm remained always at his injured side.  He had cut all his hair short, as much for convenience as for mourning.  It was much the same with all the wánaktes and qasiléyus, all but Agamemnon.  The P’ilístas and the island kings combed their dark locks, but Meneláwo’s fell unkempt and dirty in his face.  Dark circles at Diwoméde’s once youthful eyes told of the draining gash in his foot that he kept wrapped in filthy linen.  Néstor, shattered by the loss of his son, no longer spoke in the assembly, but sat in empty-eyed silence.

Agamémnon alone remained unruffled, swaggering with his full head of hair and his neatly combed beard.  His injured arm had healed a little stiffer than before, but only those who knew him well noticed the difference.

“King Alakshándu is ready to meet your demands,” Antánor announced after they had finished their thin porridge.  “What are they?”

Agamémnon crossed his well-muscled arms on his chest and stared up at the cloudless sky.  “Certainly a decent amount of tin will be involved, as well as the priestess, Kashánda, for my new wife.”

“Barley is what we need right now,” Meneláwo told his brother in a low voice.  “It is worth its weight in bronze to hungry men.”

Ainyáh broke in, “The whole of Wilúsiya has been impoverished by this war.  You cannot demand much.”

Odushéyu was impatient.  “Get this over with.  We cannot afford to let these negotiations drag on indefinitely.  Autumn is already half gone and the sailing season with it.  I, for one, do not relish the thought of surviving all this slaughter only to drown in the first winter storm.”

Diwoméde raised a poppy flask to signal his desire to speak.  “I say we demand a hundred ingots of copper, five hundred of tin, and a thousand bushels of wheat.”

“To ‘Aidé with the lot of you!” Ainyáh cursed in exasperation.  Beside him, Érinu’s eyes widened in dismay.

Antánor coughed.  “And how long do you intend to give us to acquire this exorbitant ransom?”

Aíwaks leaned close to the Tróyan councilor.  “Pay it now and we will leave.  Pay it again every summer for the next ten years or we will come back and finish you off.”

Érinu waved his hands.  “You cannot mean that!  Ainyáh told you.  We do not have that much!”

“We did not come to Wilúsiya to give you a bargain,” Idómeneyu growled, feeling the hilt of his dagger.  “We came to sack Tróya.  We can still do it if you do not give us enough.”

Érinu shook his head in mournful disbelief.  “Agree to anything they say, Antánor,” the priest moaned.  “We do not have any choice.  The Qalladiyón is gone.  Tróya is doomed.  My father, my mother, my sisters...”  He suddenly collapsed backward, an unearthly scream coming from his lips, and his limbs twitched violently.  His eyes rolled far back in his head, saliva dripping from his mouth.  His breath growled in his chest, unable to enter or leave.

The Ak’áyans left their seats abruptly, backing away from the unearthly sight, Ainyáh with them.  “What is wrong with him?” Diwoméde gasped.

Antánor knelt at the stricken man’s head, trying to keep it from banging against the hard ground.  “It is the sickness of the gods,” the councilor explained.  “He sees things that no mortal should.  When the vision overtakes his body, this happens.”

“Is he dying?” Odushéyu asked, nervously fingering the lozenge-shaped amulet at his neck.

Antánor answered, “No.  The spell will last only a short while.”  To the troop commanders watching in awe, though, the moment seemed long.  At last, the young priest’s twitching stopped and he lay very still, breathing normally, though shallowly.  His eyes fluttered open briefly before closing again.  He moaned softly.

“He will sleep now,” Antánor announced.

No sound came from the assembled lawagétas.

Antánor repeated his statement, adding, “I have seen this many times before.  He will be himself again by nightfall.  Then, he will be able to tell us the nature of his divine vision.”

Agamémnon shrugged and gestured to his qasiléyu.  “Fix him a pallet in my tent, Diwoméde.”

When Érinu lay sleeping on the overlord’s sheepskins, the lawagétas and Tróya’s envoys returned to the campfire outside.  “It is possible that Érinu will help our cause,” Ainyáh told them all.  “I was not able to discover his thought last night, since Antánor and I had to make preparations for this morning’s embassy.  I do know that he wishes the war to end now.  So, when we are ready to leave here, I will take Érinu aside and find out exactly where he stands.”

But Agamémnon was not willing to take such a chance.  “I will just keep him here until it is all over,” he decided.  “I need a new priest anyway.  My prophet died in the last battle.  So tragic.”  His face was slit by a hint of a smile, but no man dared to question, much less accuse him.

“What will we tell Alakshándu?” Ainyáh asked, with a frown.

“Tell him that his son fell sick and we are taking care of him,” the high wánaks suggested easily.  “Tell him anything you like.  He is hardly in a position to object.”

“He will not like it,” Antánor worried, thinking again of his recent release from the storeroom, and of the rats with which he had shared that cramped space.

Agamémnon laughed and his troop leaders followed suit.  Even Ainyáh was unconcerned.  “The old man cares nothing for his living sons,” the mercenary reminded his brother-in-law.  “All he can think about are ones he has lost.  It will mean nothing to him if Érinu does return with us.  No, Agamémnon’s plan is best.”