Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) (47 page)

The young Argive limped to the cluster of captives and sought the princess.  The royal women of Tróya clasped one another’s arms in the center of the group, surrounded by serving maids and merchants’ wives.  Most were unclothed, their long, tangled hair their only raiment, as their sobbing children clung to them.  The women’s faces were scratched and bleeding to demonstrate their mourning for their slaughtered menfolk, their arms and backs bruised by Ak’áyan spear butts.  With their skin darkened by the soot of the fires, they bore little resemblance to the wealthy princesses who had once watched Paqúr sail away from steep Wilúsiya with promises of wealthy booty on his return.

Diwoméde found the woman he wanted and dragged her out, though she pulled against his grip and kicked her feet, screaming curses and spitting.  As she passed them, the other Tróyan women shrieked with rising intensity.  Mothers sought to put their own bodies between the Ak’áyan soldier and their little ones.  “You will pay for this, Ak’áyan wolves!” Kashánda cried, her tears driving light channels through the dirt and ashes on her face.  “The gods will punish you for your sacrilege and my dishonor!  You will all die horrible deaths!”

Agamémnon slapped her with the back of his broad hand to silence her.  The woman’s slender legs gave way at the blow and she collapsed in a heap.  “Take her to my ship and put her beneath the rowing benches,” the overlord commanded his young qasiléyu.  “Tie her up if you have to.”  With some effort, Diwoméde lifted Kashánda and draped her unceremoniously over his shoulder.

“Owái, my poor sister!” Laqíqepa wailed, behind her husband.  “Do something, Antánor!  You must do something!”  She clapped her hands first to her own shorn and graying hair and then to her husband’s narrow shoulders.

But Antánor shook his head.  He answered his wife without meeting her dark eyes.  “I have no power over Agamémnon.  It was all I could do to save you and our children from such a fate.”

Laqíqepa sobbed in despair, tearing again at her cheeks which had been deeply scratched before.  “Husband, husband, what is to become of us?  What have you done?”

Agamémnon did not wait for his qasiléyu’s return to continue the apportionment.  “The rest will be awarded by lot,” the overlord commanded.  “Idómeneyu, mark the pebbles for the men.”

Andrómak’e was the next to be taken to the center of the ring to be awarded.  “Who will try for Qántili’s widow?” the Argive high wánaks asked.  Beside him, the trembling woman stood in tears, her baby squalling in her arms.

Antánor roused himself from his troubled apathy and strode into the center of the ring of armed men to object.  “This woman is mine.  King Alashándu awarded her and the child to me before his death.”

But Aíwaks drove the Tróyan councilor back.  “Assúwans receive no booty here,” he growled, menacing the older man with his fists.  “Alakshándu’s property has been confiscated.”

The Tróyan opened his mouth to complain.  But the blue-eyed Ak’áyan towered over him, glowering, his fists raised.  “Your life is your prize and nothing more.  Speak again and I will wring your scrawny neck and take your own wife for my share of the booty here.”

Antánor fell back to his wife’s side, white with fury.  Laqíqepa spat on her husband’s feet and cursed his name.  “Ai, now I see!  Antánor, you coward!  You are no true son of Lawomédon!  This was all your doing, was it not?  You betrayed holy Tróya to these dogs, did you not?  That is the reason why these foul dáimons have not touched us.  Well, now you see that they repay you with the very same treachery!”

“I did what I did only to protect you and the children,” Antánor responded in anguish, the words piercing him to the very heart.  “If I had done nothing, they would still have taken the citadel and you would be with your sisters over there, waiting to be allotted to some heartless barbarian and carried off to Ak’áiwiya!  Would you prefer that?  Would it truly please you more to sit with our daughters in that miserable cluster of humanity and know that your sons were dead?”

Beside him, Laqíqepa did not answer.  She only gathered her grown children around her, weeping bitterly for her kinfolk, sisters forsaken, brothers fallen, nephews and nieces enslaved.

Each man who desired Andrómak’e put his token into Agamémnon’s helmet.  The goddess of fortune chose Púrwo, awarding to him the slain hero, Qántili’s widow and orphaned son.  Ak’illéyu’s son whooped and danced when Idómeneyu read his name on the pebble.  “Qántili killed uncle Patróklo and my father killed Qántili!  Now, the gods complete T’eshalíya’s vengeance by giving me the murderer’s wife and child!”

The women taken captive earlier in the campaign now came ashore in the Kep’túriyan’s boats.  As the most recent prisoners came to the new campsite, they were quickly put to work alongside the earlier women, erecting tents, building fires, preparing the morning meal.  ‘Iqodámeya watched from beyond the circle of men, her hands on the slight swelling of her abdomen, tears of sympathy falling from her eyes.  When the T’eshalíyans led their commander’s prize to the campfires, ‘Iqodámeya gently touched the shaved head of Andrómak’e’s little prince.  With weary tears, the two women embraced and together mourned their losses.

In her turn, Eqépa was allotted to Odushéyu.  The mariner laughed heartily when his name was read from his pebble.  “Agamémnon!” he called out, “you may have forgotten your promise to me, but the gods did not.  Eqépa was rightfully mine the moment we entered Tróya’s gates.  Now, I will see if this old cow can spin!”

Tróya’s former queen found new strength at the sound of the burly pirate’s voice.  She refused to follow her new master.  Screaming curses, she lashed out at his men when they tried to drag her to the campfires.  “You son of a goat!” she shrieked, “I will wind no thread for the likes of you!”

Surprised at the ferocity of the elderly woman’s struggle, the It’ákans lost their hold on the widow and she ran back among the other captives to the arms of her kinswomen.  The men followed her and carried her again toward the shore, two soldiers bearing her every limb.  Still, the Tróyan queen continued to fight and hurl curses.  “I call upon all the ancient gods and goddesses!” she cried, in a full-throated roar of passion.  “May every Ak’áyan ship be struck by storm!  Hear me, Mother Dáwan!  May every Ak’áyan wife marry again before her husband reaches home!  May Ak’áyan sons murder their aging fathers when they arrive.  Avenge holy Tróya, Father Poseidáon!  Let Ak’áyan bones lie unburied, food for crows and jackals.  Let Ak’áyan spirits roam the earth thirsting forever!”  Kicking and biting to keep the It’ákans’ hands off of her, she continued her furious cries.

“By ‘Aidé!” Aíwaks swore, his face growing pale.  “A woman’s curses are the worst.  Close her mouth before she dooms us all!”

“Stone her!” the pirate’s men demanded.  “Odushéyu, you must stone her and stop these curses or we are all damned!”  The call was taken up by other Ak’áyans, first by the P’ilístas and Kep’túriyans, finally by all the foot soldiers, from north and south.  “Stone her or we are all damned!”

Undaunted by her threatened fate, Eqépa shrieked and struggled as madly as ever.  Bitten by words that touched their deepest fears, Odushéyu’s men dropped the white-haired queen and she once more returned to the cluster of captives.  Standing before the kneeling women of Tróya, Eqépa raised her hands to the heavens.  “I have lost my husband and all my sons to you, lord Arét, king of the netherworld.  I accept my loss.  It was fate.  Lady Préswa, you are welcome to my heart, now, too.  Take me, great lady, take me.  But let me see these foreign swine forever waiting to enter your lands.  Do not let their worthless souls cross the foul waters of the Stuks.  Close the gates of ‘Aidé’s citadel against them.  Force them to wander the earth forever, in torment, thirsting always, forgotten by their descendants, suffering neglect throughout eternity.  Sink their blasphemous ships, lord Poseidáon!  Drag their filthy bodies down into the sea where they can never be buried!”

“I will close her evil mouth!” Púrwo cried, alarmed at the fear that threatened to envelope the victorious forces.  He raised his bloody sword and marched toward the former monarch with determined steps.

She met his gaze as he came, unafraid of his, and stood her ground.  “Send me to join my dear sons!” she shouted, her voice coarse, hardly human.  “I am not afraid to die.  By the will of the Dove, may you die before the holiest shrine of your own people.  Yes, by the will of the Horse, may you perish at sea.  May Préswa take your every child before she claims you.  Let there be an end to your accursed family!”

Aíwaks stopped the young T’eshalíyan and pulled the weapon from the boy’s hand.  “You do the woman honor to take her life with bronze,” the tall man argued.  “If she must die, we should give her a coward death, a woman’s death.  Stone her!”

Odushéyu paced among his men, waving his arms and yelling at them.  “Eqépa is only a weak woman and an old one at that.  She cannot fight with bronze, so she throws words!  We are not afraid of tongues, are we?  How can you be such weak fawns?  She is my prize, my booty!  Take her to my ship, I say.  Do it now!  Put her under the rowing benches.  Tie her up and stuff her mouth with wool, if you want her silenced.  I am no more concerned over her curses than I am to hear sheep bleating or dogs barking!”

But his men hesitated, looking out at the gray sea and its white-capped waves.  “Díwo rules the sky and protects us on the land,” Aíwaks reasoned, nervously pulling at his full beard.  “But Poseidáon rules the sea and this is Poseidáon’s city that we just sacked.”

“Agamémnon!” Odushéyu cried in desperation.  “Wánaks, I supported you.  Where is your support for me?”

Meneláwo stood with his arms crossed on his chest, his wife now safely out of sight and encircled by his men.  Untouched by the swirling passions of the crowd, he watched in silence as events unfolded, dropping no tokens into his brother’s helmet, claiming no further prized from fallen Tróya.  But he nodded now at the Argive overlord.  “The woman is Odushéyu’s rightful prize, to do with as he pleases,” the Lakedaimóniyan said.

Even his words carried no weight with men facing the sea god anger.  “The sailing season is over and we are at the mercy of Poseidáon’s storms,” Aíwaks roared to eager ears.

Agamémnon forced a laugh and shouted, “We have destroyed a great fortress and taken control of the tin trade.  All of Náshiya is at our feet, do you hear?  We have vanquished the greatest empire in the world!  How can fear an old, weak woman?”

Odushéyu took hold of Eqépa himself, and when she still resisted, he tossed her up on his broad shoulder.  “Dog!  Jackal!” she shrieked, kicking and flailing until she unbalanced him and forced him to drop her.  The It’ákan contingent rushed forward, pushing their wánaks out of the way, and hurled rocks until the queen’s furious screams were stilled forever.

Shrill cries came from the captives, but silence from the Ak’áyans.  “Ai, Odushéyu, that was bad luck,” Agamémnon commiserated, at long last.  “But never mind.  She was old and would not have lived long, anyway.  Where is your token?  Try again.  Fortune may be kinder with your next allotment.  There is another princess and several merchants’ wives still to be had.”

Odushéyu cursed his assembled men as well as lady luck.  But nothing could undo what had been done.  As the high wánaks suggested, he placed his pebble in the overlord’s helmet for every woman and child on the field after that, each time raising his hand to his forehead and the sky, calling, “Lady At’ána!”  Still, the goddess held his stone inside the head-piece at every turn.  He received no compensation for the loss of Eqépa.