Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (44 page)

The Italians coming toward the shore carried bows in one hand, a few arrows gripped in the other. The men wore little more than the newcomers, though short kilts covered their loins. Their hair was trimmed short, as well, just below their ears, and their beards were braided below their chins. Most of them had rubbed reddish clay over their faces, as warriors also were known to do far south of the Great Green Sea. When they opened their mouths for their startlingly loud war-cry, this made their teeth appear brilliantly white in contrast. “Ululú!” came that unnerving call again, this time much closer, as the natives advanced at a trot. Before long, there were two lines of men facing each other near the water’s edge. Still, they were far enough apart that the refugees’ rough clubs would do them no good, but not so far that the natives’ arrows could not reach their targets.

“Someone ought to insult them,” Askán suggested, eager to do it himself. “That is how my father always brought the two lines together for a battle.”

T’érsite and Tushrátta moved immediately to silence the youth. “But we do not want a fight, you stupid calf!” the Lúkiyan hissed in his ear.

The lowborn Argive grabbed the young man’s throat to emphasize the point. “Just you keep your muzzle closed and pay attention to your commander’s orders and never mind what your father used to say.”

Askán gasped and felt of his neck when he was released. But he did not fall completely quiet. A good deal less belligerently than before, he asked in a rather squeaky voice, “Who is my commander? Odushéyu? You?”

Tushrátta spun around on his heel and struck the teenager on the cheek, raising a bright, red welt. “Just shut up!”

Pointing to the chastened boy, several of the Italians began to laugh. But it was not a friendly sound. It had the ring of ferocity building, of heated blood that thirsted for combat. The tallest archer among them put an arrow to his bow and drew the bowstring taut against his chest, sighting along the shaft. His movements had the fluid and leisurely grace of practiced confidence. None of the refugees had the slightest doubt that he would strike whoever he aimed at. Boards shifted in trembling hands, becoming makeshift shields before their otherwise undefended bodies. Those with knives swiftly drew them. The sunlight, already heating the ground, made the arrowheads and dagger blades glisten. Sweat ran in rivulets down bronzed flesh and tense muscles.

A woman stepped into the space between the two parties. She walked slowly, almost fearfully, from the cluster of refugee women, around the end of the brief line of Ak’áyan and Assúwan men. Facing the Italian line, she inched her way forward, shuddering. Her daughter was not in her arms, but crying loudly at Mélisha’s side.
“Owái
, Dáuniya, you will be killed!” the women wept.

“Mama!” the little girl sobbed beside Mélisha.

“Dáuniya, get back!” Diwoméde cried, taking a hesitant step forward, his dagger in his hand.

CHAPTER 13

RASNA

Dáuniya seemed not to hear, her eyes fastened on the tall archer. Tears streamed down her face. Those, too, failed to draw her notice. She mouthed a hesitant word, but no sound came from her trembling lips. Even as Diwoméde came forward to catch hold of her, the Italian bowman relaxed his arm, easing the tension on the bowstring slowly, so that he did not loose the feathered dart. The
qasiléyu
threw his weaker arm around his wife’s waist, dragging her around and behind his own body, shielding her. But she would not stay there. Insistently, she struggled to turn and face the Italians again.
“Ai
, Dáuniya,” Diwoméde pleaded, gritting his teeth, “be still!”

“Dáuniya!” repeated the tall archer, cautiously moving toward the two newcomers. “Dáuniya?” he asked. They stood a moment face to face, he and Diwoméde, one pair of dark and flashing eyes meeting another. Then the Italian looked away from the
qasiléyu’s
face to Dáuniya’s. His brows knit with puzzlement. Quietly, he said, “My uncle is Dáunu. Can you be kin to him? You? A foreign woman?”

Instead of answering his question, Dáuniya asked her own, her voice scarcely audible, even to Diwoméde, who still held her tightly to his side. “Papa?”

The archer was so started to hear that word, he almost dropped his bow. “Dáuniya?” he asked again, unable to comprehend what the name implied. “My Dáuniya? My big sister, who was carried off by pirates to the Sqámandro River land? But she was just a little thing, not yet twelve years old! By the sun and stars, you do not know who I am, do you? I am not your father, Dáuniya, but Túrem! I am your little brother.”

The woman’s knees gave way and Diwoméde found that his bad arm could not hold her weight. Together, they sank to the dry earth, both their eyes fastened on those of the Italian man. Túrem knelt just as slowly at his sister’s side. His hand and hers cautiously moved forward till their fingertips alone were touching.

Behind them, although they were oblivious to it, their people began to whisper. “Did she say she knew the man, or what?” Odushéyu was asking, glancing to his right and left. “So, is this our new land of Zeyugeláya, or not? Not this, surely, not our first landfall in this miserable Bull Country. I do not even see any bulls! And what was all that talk about Fire Island? Where is the fire?”

“
Ai
, by the fingers and toes of the Great Goddess, old man,” T’éti snapped, lightly slapping his shoulder with the back of her hand. “What does any of that matter, so long as she knows him, and so long as no arrows are flying? What did you expect, anyway? Certainly not that ridiculous, one-eyed giant carrying monstrous sheep about, or a silly
Kentáuro
with horse feet to carry you to our lord, Diwonúso, himself, no?”

Odushéyu spun around, his face a bright scarlet at being reminded of some of his more colorful lies. “Do not strike your husband, old woman! Show a little respect for rank, if not for the customs of civilized society, wife! As for expectations, why did you not predict a few of these details when you were having that little vision yesterday? What good are you as a queen if you cannot even prophesy properly? You are certainly no prize under the sheepskins, let me tell you!”

T’éti gave a squeel of indignant fury. “How dare you speak to your
wánasha
this way, you foul dog, and in public! You are the one with no sense of decency! And no particular skill among the bed-clothes, I might add, if we are to talk of such private matters amid our subjects!”

T’érsite shouldered his way between the battling pair, separating them.
“Ai gar
, you two are about as regal as two fishermen whose nets have fouled each other.” On either side, Ak’áyans and Assúwans roared with laughter.

In the empty space between the two bands of travelers and natives, the newfound brother and sister began laughing too, this time utterly without ferocity. At the same time, tears spilled over their cheeks and they wept for the long years of separation. Dáuniya’s hands went to her own flowing tears. As she trembled, laughed, and cried all at once, she put her hands to the face of the man before her, too. Túrem dropped his weapons and caught her in a warm embrace, both of them hugging so tightly that their fingertips whitened with the pressure. Diwoméde felt his own eyes brimming just watching. He well knew the heartache of long-delayed homecoming.

Though the others were confused, it was clear enough that there would be no battle, not that day at least. Both the group of Italians and the assembled refugees lowered their weapons and began to move among one another, cautiously greeting the strangers who had mysteriously become such fast friends. It soon became clear that Dáuniya’s brother, Túrem, was a man of some importance in the nearby village. His title of Lúkum, when the archer announced it, brought more tearful laughter and warm hugs from Dáuniya, although it meant nothing to the other travelers.

“Do you mean that you are the chieftain, the leader?” Diwoméde asked, trying not to show his immense relief at the way that things had turned out.

Túrem and his men joined in Dáuniya’s mirth at the question, this time. “No, no, just war leader,” the archer explained. “Get all of your people gathered up and I will take you to our village. Then you can meet the Lárez. He is the headman, the chieftain as you would say. Of course, when he finds out that you have brought our Dáuniya back, he will insist that you have breakfast with us. It will be nothing, I am afraid, just a little flatbread and dried apples and roast mutton. We have been considering another move and the cattle have already gone out for the morning. But, at least, there is plenty of beer.”

Their mouths watering, the exiles made haste to collect the rest of their number from the ships and those who were still scattered about the near hills. When the news of Ainyáh’s passing came with the first group, there were tears and cries from many, none louder or more heartfelt than from Askán. “But T’éti said that he would get well,” he wept repeatedly, to anyone who would listen, as if her erroneous prophesy could induce fate to reverse itself.

Túrem expressed his condolences cheerfully and suggested they bring the body with them on a board. “We will even help you carry it,” the Lúkum offered, feeling generous by that time. “We are planning another move, as I said, so you will have to cremate him and carry the bones along, of course. There is no time for a full burial, just now. But when we get you settled for the winter, you can bury the bones and ashes in a proper tomb. Now, if you do not have a
flámen
of your own to conduct the ceremonies, I am sure that our Karména will be happy to help you out. By the way, I have always wanted to ask this, but where do you easterners go when you die? I mean, I know that our souls always go down the river of Zánya to reach the land of the dead. But your spirits must take a different route, since you start off in the wrong place. I have never heard the
flámen
mention anyone other than an Italian when they have visited the netherworld.”

Odushéyu, anxious to recoup his high standing, now that the danger seemed to be past, strode forward, shouldering Diwoméde out of the way. Walking beside the Lúkum, the former
wánaks
loudly said, “I thank you for your kind offer, Túkun, was it? But we have no need of your, what did you call it, a
flámis
? Anyway, we have our own seeress, and a very good one she is, at that.
Ai
, now, perhaps we could use just a little help in that regard, after all, now that I think of it. Ours seems to be slightly defective of late. But now, tell me, have you heard of the great mariner and king of all the western islands, I mean to say the isles of the east, that great and noble Odushéyu? I am that man and most fortunate we both are to meet like this, under such friendly circumstances, I mean.
Idé
, if Dáuniya had not stopped us, we would have sent the pack of you running, in no time at all, like so many frightened puppies! Why, we are seasoned warriors, veterans of the great and famous Tróyan war! I am sure you have heard of that illustrious campaign, have you not? Let me tell you all about it, my good man.”

The village, when they saw it from the foot of its rather steep hill, was unprepossessing. It was surrounded by a stout, wooden palisade. It was not quite the permanent fort that Érinu had constructed in his realm in the far north, though still more than a mere fence. Above the many huts inside, there rose a number of smoke columns from the many hearths, a large one from the biggest of the houses on the highest ground, with a number of other, smaller plumes on every side of it. The buildings were much alike in their basic construction, log frames filled in with stout wickerwork. Many saplings and the larger branches of ash and elm trees had gone into these buildings. A thin coat of mud plaster covered the wood, the intertwining of the boughs still visible beneath a none-too-generous coating of painted plaster. A dusky yellow was the dominant color, like much of the earth thereabout. Around the geometric designs worked in this hue were smaller, contrasting areas in which the plaster had been liberally mixed with pale lime, still others where it had been mixed with darker ashes. Each rectangular hut had a door on one of its shorter sides and an open window beside it. The smaller dwellings had a second, triangular opening just below the eaves for a smoke hole. But the largest dwelling had a round, ceramic chimney-pipe, copied from their more prosperous neighbors (and sometime enemies) across the sea to the east. Most of the roofs were simple thatch, but again, the big one on the peak of the hill had been given special treatment, being overlaid with tiles of sun-baked brick.

“By Tarqúnt!” Tushrátta exclaimed breathlessly at the sight. “Here are your rude lean-toes, Peirít’owo, though we seem to be a good, long way from Párpara. Not bad, I must say! No house of stone and brick ever looked any better to these tired, old eyes!” The younger Kep’túriyan was too busy with his own huffing and puffing, struggling up the hill, to take offense. The other travelers, too, were exhausted and close to collapse. The sight of such shelter from the hot sun was so welcome, no one was at all troubled by the fact that, back in their original homelands, they had seen better construction techniques and, indeed, built better shelters themselves.