People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (23 page)

Idómeneyu was convinced of this.  "Meneláwo would not attempt to break his oath to his own brother.  Even if the rest of us considered sitting out Agamémnon's Assúwan war, he, at least, must be sending troops to Aúli.  If we can just get that far, Agamémnon will have to help us, in return for our services as warriors."

But the travelers found only disappointment in Lakedaimón.  Meneláwo welcomed the unexpected guests into his fortress at Aúgeyai.  But he would not allow them the use of his bath-chamber before their meal, breaking with custom.  "Water is too scarce," was his only explanation.  They had to content themselves with washing only their hands and faces in a small basin.  Although the wánaks invited them to join him in the mégaron for a meal, their food and wine was rationed, as well.

Odushéyu complained, "Such treatment is tantamount to making us servants, rather than honored guests and equals.  Ai gar, if any other king had greeted me in this way, I would consider it an act of war!"

"Until my ships return with provisions from overseas, every man receives the same portion," Meneláwo firmly told his visitors.  "I do not know how long my stores will have to last us."

"I understand what you are trying to do, my friend," Idómeneyu told the Lakedaimóniyan.  "You think you will stave off rebellion among your people this way.  But treating all men as equals will only make things worse for you in the end.  If every low-born farmer thinks he deserves as much as the high-born wánaks, our whole society will fall apart.  Men do not follow the orders of their superiors when they believe they have none.  Think of it, Meneláwo.  Shepherds will keep all their flocks for themselves and their families.  Farmers will refuse to give up even a tenth of their crops to feed the palaces.  All the noble professions will disappear, bakers, potters, bronze-smiths, not to mention warriors.  All of them will have no choice but to return to the fields to grow their own food.  Idé, my friend, there will be no difference between us and the western barbarians of the country of ítalo."

Meneláwo was untouched by the protests and arguments of his former allies.  "The common people are prone to say that drought is a punishment from the gods for their king's sins.  I do not know that this is so.  But I do not know that it is not.  It may be that I share some of the blame for my country's misfortune.  If so, it is only right that I bear my part of the suffering."

Idómeneyu would have protested further but Odushéyu stopped him.  "Let the man see for himself," the It'ákan urged.  To Meneláwo he said, "If you are determined to stay here and suffer like a commoner, we will not try to stop you.  But we are not servants and we will not live like slaves.  We are Ak'áyan warriors.  Give us weapons and armor so that we can serve your brother in his Assúwan campaign.  And send as many of your ships with us as you can spare, along with men to row them."

Again Meneláwo disappointed them.  "I need my ships and my men to seek out new sources of grain.  My first voyages gained me very little.  The western Ak'áyan kingdoms received rain and they have food.  But Mesheníya and It'áka are overrun with refugees from the dryer lands.  Attika is the same.  Even if they had surplus grain to trade, the rulers of these places hold a grudge against my brother.  Because I am kin to him, they will not trade with me.  It is the same in the north.  T'ráki is hostile and will not give me barley.  My ships have sailed ever further afield and still they come back with little in their hulls.  Even Assúwa and Kanaqán are stricken with drought."

Idómeneyu nodded mournfully.  "I discovered that, too."

Meneláwo went on, "So my men must either brave the seas of the far west or go south to Mízriya.  I cannot help you."

"Is that what you will say when your brother comes, too?" Odushéyu asked bitterly.  "If you can forget your debt to us that quickly, will you also forget that are related to Agamémnon?"

Meneláwo studied the exiles' faces thoughtfully, stiffly leaning back on his great chair.  "Agamémnon will not be coming."  The words pained him and he could not meet the surprised gazes of his guests.  Looking up at the smoke hole in the roof, he said wearily, "Go to Attika.  I hear that Diwoméde has gone there.  Wánaks Erékt'eyu may be willing to hire you as mercenaries.  That is my advice to you."

"Attika!" Odushéyu cried angrily.  "Erékt'eyu!  What are you talking about?  We mean to go to Qoyotíya, to meet Agamémnon.  We will go from there to Assúwa, as we swore we would last autumn.  You took the same oath, Meneláwo.  Ai, you have tasted the poppy too often.  It has eaten away your heart."

Meneláwo did not argue.  He did not answer at all.  But at the mention of the poppy, he took a small flask from the folds of his wool kilt.  He pulled out the small dried fig that served as the stopper and poured a few drops into his half-empty wine cup.  Stirring the wine with a finger, he replaced the fig in the small neck of the poppy-shaped jug.  "Ai, it is an evil fate the goddesses have spun for my family," he sighed and drank deeply of his poppy-tinged wine.

Odushéyu spat on the painted floor and Idómeneyu shook his head in disgust.  The Kep'túriyan exile spoke softly to his companion.  "We are wasting our time here.  Let us recruit what Lakedaimóniyans we can in the lower town and sail directly to Qoyotíya in the morning.  Meneláwo is hopeless.  But Agamémnon will arm us, we can be sure."

aaa

As the exiles sailed north toward Qoyotíya, neighboring Attika's wánaks received a message.  "Read the tablet to me, Kt'oníya," Erékt'eyu told his daughter.

The middle-aged woman frowned as she traced the signs in yellow-tinted wax.  "King Aígist'o of Argo greets you.  He sends no bronze from his own stores.  But one who claims to be a kinsman of Diwoméde offers a ransom.  Ai, Father, you cannot free that man."

"Why?" asked the aging king, with a hostile look in his eye.  "Is he dead?"

"No, he is still alive.  But all the others died and no one would doubt you if you claimed that he had, too.  In fact, I am sure that Klutaimnéstra would be pleased to hear it," the princess said, dropping the tablet beside the throne.  "Listen to me, Father.  We cannot afford to anger Argo right now.  Not while our countryside is overrun with refugees from the drought.  With so many foreigners in our land, anything could happen."

"My thoughts exactly," the king responded.  "But Argo is more than queen Klutaimnéstra.  If ransom has come for Diwoméde, then I must free him.  I had my chance to kill him, but instead I chose to spare him.  It would be a violation of custom to execute him now."

Kt'oníya still was not pleased.  "But no one would know…"

"If he is the only survivor," Erékt'eyu continued, his voice sharper than before, "then he must be favored by the gods.  Men would not know if I had the man killed but the gods cannot be fooled.  No, daughter, Klutaimnéstra will have to accept Diwoméde's existence.  If it pains her, then she must bear her suffering as best she can.  Menést'eyu," he called out, interrupting himself in mid-speech.

The man guarding the entrance to his mégaron came forward.  "Bring the captive from the storeroom," the king commanded in his reedy voice.  "His freedom has been purchased."

"Yes, wánaks," the qasiléyu answered, hiding his thoughts obediently, and left the room.

Turning back to his daughter, the white-haired king added, "Kt'oníya, you must see that he is bathed and his wounds are treated.  If he dies after he returns home, it is no concern of mine.  But I want him still breathing when he reaches Argo."

The princess bowed her head submissively.  But when she was alone with Menést'eyu in the dim corridor before the prison room, she told the qasiléyu, "Take him to the courtyard for his bath, since that is my father's order.  Have the serving women pour water over him.  But that is all.  The man is our enemy.  I will not have him polluting my bath chamber.  His wounds must be treated, too, by the king's command, again.  Make it a harsh treatment, though.  I would still be just as pleased to see him die.  If he should survive to see Argo after all that, then it is the will of the gods and I must accept it."

Menést'eyu submitted to the royal woman's orders.  He slid the bolt and opened the door to find the last surviving prisoner lying on the floor in a fetal position.  Diwoméde barely opened one swollen eye and did not move.  The Attikan grasped the prisoner's wounded arm and pulled upward to make him sit.  Diwoméde did not resist, though he let out a thin wail at the pain.  Menést'eyu cursed as he realized the prisoner was unable to leave the room on his own power.  The Attikan bent and threw the captive over his shoulder to carry him outside.

Diwoméde was only half conscious when the warm, outside air struck his bare flesh.  He made no sound when Menést'eyu dropped him in a heap on the pavement of the palace courtyard.  Nor did the young Argive move as serving women came to his side, water-filled jars borne on their heads.  But as the woman poured the contents of the jugs over the prisoner, the coolness of the water began to revive him.  Diwoméde coughed and moved his uninjured arm to cover his face, blinking at the brightness of the unfamiliar light.

The women knelt beside the Argive with scraps of fleece, to scrub away a few layers of dirt.  They worked quickly and vigorously, exclaiming to each other at the foul smell.  The captive groaned and pushed weakly at their hands, not comprehending what was happening.  When the women finished their washing, Menést'eyu leaned over the prone man to assess his injuries.  "There is a lot of pus coming out of the shoulder," the Attikan announced.  "If the fever does not kill him, that will probably heal.  The foot is the worst.  These two small toes are completely black."  He pointed and the women nodded.

"What are you going to do to me?" Diwoméde asked, his voice weak, his limbs beginning to tremble.  He turned to his side but found himself unable to sit up.  "What are you going to do?"

"Lay him on his back and hold him," Menést'eyu told one of the women.  "Then you," he added, pointing to the other, "you bend his knee so his foot is flat on the pavement.  Keep him still while I cut off the rotten part."  He drew his sword from its scabbard.

One woman pushed Diwoméde's shoulders back against the limestone paving and sat on his chest.  She gripped his wrists and pulled them up beside his head, pressing them against the courtyard floor.  He gave a small cry of pain at her every move and struggled weakly.  The other servant sat on his uninjured leg, grasping his other thigh and forcing his knee to bend.

"No, no, do not cut off my foot," Diwoméde begged, trying to fight.  But, after more than a month of too little food, fighting infection, wracked with fever, he was helpless.  The women easily held the prisoner still while Menést'eyu considered where to slice.  Tears brimmed in the captive's eyes and spilled over, filling his ears.  He wept as unabashedly as a child, as his swollen foot was pushed down, hard, against the limestone.  "Please, no, no."

Menést'eyu took aim and raised his arm, bringing the sharp blade down against Diwoméde's badly swollen foot.  The Argive screamed once, before losing consciousness.  The Attikan warrior continued to cut, sawing until the toes came off.

It was a limp and seemingly lifeless captive that Menést'eyu carried to the port below At'énai that afternoon.  Though he was still breathing, Diwoméde did not open his eyes when he was taken up on the burly shoulders of a visiting Argive.  Burning with fever, the young qasiléyu  was unaware of his fate as the man bore him over the rowing benches of an Argive ship.  The bearer laid his human cargo on the stern platform of the longboat, beneath a small shed, and sat beside him.

A few drops of honey-sweetened wine moistened the young qasiléyu's lips and he licked them off instinctively.  Moaning, he opened his eyes a crack.  Perceiving only the man's dim outline, Diwoméde tried to cry out.  The only sound he could make was a whimper.

Beside him, the broad-shouldered man patted Diwoméde's hand, his touch surprisingly gentle.  "Ai, you will be all right, boy," said a familiar voice.  "Dáuniya will see to that.  We did not forget you, Diwoméde.  We would not leave you to die in captivity.  Yes, good, old Uncle T'érsite is your only kinsman now."

aaa

For eight days, the combined exiles of It'áka, Mesheníya, Kep'túr, and Libúwa sailed and rowed toward the northern Ak'áyan kingdom of Qoyotíya.  Thinking that Agamémnon would already be waiting in the port of Aúli, they avoided the Argive fortress of Tíruns.  They rounded Argo's eastern peninsula, instead, to speed their arrival in the north.  Spending the night on the small, off-shore island of 'Udra, they heard disturbing rumors.  The rain-starved countryside of Argo was in turmoil, shepherds told them.  Whole villages had been abandoned.  Roving bandits made all the roads unsafe.  King Agamémnon himself was rumored to be dead, and at his own wife's hand, said some.  Others claimed that it was queen Klutaimnéstra who had been murdered, that the returning wánaks had been caught by battle madness and slaughtered his entire household, wife, children, and servants.