People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) by Diana Gainer Read Free Book Online Page A

as their wánasha, certainly not as a replacement for a holy Lakedaimóniyan priestess of their own, native Mother Diwiyána."
     
    Meneláwo threw up his hands.  "St'énelo, you are wasting your breath when you tell me these things.  No, Argo will not accept the loss of Klutaimnéstra.  I agree with you.  And no, the Argives will not allow the foreign priestess, Kashánda, to replace her.  Agamémnon's plan is certain to start a civil war.  And that is exactly why I do not want to be in Argo when my brother comes home.  Even though he is in the wrong, I cannot fight against my own flesh and blood.  But at the same time, I do not care to fight alongside him, opposing my wife's sister and the laws of Diwiyána.
     
    "No, my men, we have no choice.  We must drive ourselves to the limit, stopping only at night to rest, pushing forward from dawn until sunset each day.  We must stop in Argo, at least for a little while.  I must travel to Mukénai to pick up my daughter.  You will have that much time to rest.  But then we go on to Lakedaimón.  We must do this even if it means that only a third survive of those who once sailed for Tróya.  The only alternative is another war, a new campaign before we have had time to recover from the last one.  How many of us would return home then?"
     
    Odushéyu tried one more argument.  "Let us keep to the Assúwan coast and winter in Millewánda.  It is an Ak'áyan city at least."
     
    Still, Meneláwo shook his head.  "Ak'áyan it may be, in language and in rulers.  But Millewánda sided with Tróya in the war.  No, Odushéyu, we cannot stay in Assúwa.  The whole continent is hostile to us."
     
    No man argued any further.  As the Lakedaimóniyan wánaks commanded, all strove with every ounce of his strength to speed the crossing from that time on.  Alternately rowing and sailing toward the southwest, the Ak'áyan travelers spent their third night on the island Téno, where no amount of bronze could buy meat from even the poorest shepherd's flocks.  On their journey, no ship capsized in heaving waves.  No mast was split by lightning.  Still, the number of men who would live to see their homes grew smaller with each passing day.  Wounds blackened and drained foul-smelling liquid as infection took hold.  Writhing with pain, burning with fever, men groaned upon their beds for the last time.  Others collapsed of exhaustion to find no rest, every muscle drawn taut, their backs rigidly arched and their faces locked in the final grimace of tetanus.
     
    Weary of lamenting their kinsmen and friends, the rowers burned each dead man's flesh by night.  Before dawn they sifted through the ashes to gather the bones and packed them in urns already crowded with the burnt remains of those who had died before.  "It is a shame we have come to this," Odushéyu told the lesser-ranked men of Meneláwo's camp, watching yet another pyre burn low on Téno.  "We had to burn the dead from the beginning, following the Tróyan custom and ignoring our own.  That was bad enough.  But there were so many dead during the war, we could not hold a proper funeral for them all.  We held no games, not so much as a foot-race, except for Ak'illéyu and his brother.  Now, no one bothers to sing lamentations for the dead anymore or even to cut our hair."
     
    "Let their families give them proper rites when we get home" St'énelo muttered from his seat near the flames.  "We are tired of funerals."
     
    "Do you think I am not?" Odushéyu asked petulantly, not expecting an answer.  "Owái, this is an evil omen of more hard times ahead.  It calls to my mind the signs before Tróya fell.  Do you remember how your king behaved that last month?"
     
    "He fought, in spite of his wound, just as we all did," St'énelo growled.  "That was no omen."
     
    "Ai, but it was!" Odushéyu answered.  Before continuing, he looked right and left to see that no one was near enough to overhear.  He moved closer to