Steep Wilusiya (Age of Bronze) by Diana Gainer Read Free Book Online Page A

sensible.  No, the only thing to do with the dead is to mourn them.  We must eat well and drink our finest wine, as custom demands, to send the souls of the departed on their final journey.  And we must not fast for another reason, so that we will be strong when we meet our enemies the next time.  That is how a man gets revenge.  So we will do what we must.  Then, when we are ready, we will fight, all of us this time.  No man will stay by the tents.  The carpenters and helmsmen will join us in our last battle.  Ai, we will even find a spear for old Qálki.  The seer has had nothing to do since Agamémnon's dreams gave us the good omen we needed to go into battle.  Now, the old prophet will really earn the bread and wine he has been consuming all these months."
     
    Ak'illéyu stood downcast, his sudden anger spent.  Without further argument, he nodded.  The blue-eyed qasiléyu soon returned with a woman, clad only in a long, faded skirt, her black hair in a thick braid down her back.  'Iqodámeya was fearful, wringing her hands as she came, glancing anxiously at the faces of the lawagétas, the kings and their qasiléyus, hoping for a clue to her fate.  Seeing the men seated, she dutifully began to prepare the morning meal, cooking over the open fire before Agamémnon's tent.  As she worked, the other captive women in the camp did the same at other campfires, serving boiled lentils and barley porridge to men of lesser rank.
     
    The kings remained at the overlord's fire with Ak'illéyu, for the most part.  Néstor talked of the deep and abiding friendship that now existed between his southern realm of Mesheníya and Ak'illéyu's native T'eshalíya in the north.  "I might have had my quarrels with your father, Ak'illéyu," the older man admitted.  "But all that is in the past now.  What a fruitful alliance ours will be, with my kingdom the wealthiest and most fertile in the south and yours the…well, the best known in the north for its…how shall I say…battle-frenzied warriors.  Yes, between T'eshalíya's prowess in war and Mesheníya's in trade and horse-breeding, we should be able to increase the prosperity of both our lands three-fold!"
     
    This made little impression on the T'eshalíyan.  Elbowing the elder king aside, others recalled the brave deeds that Ak'illéyu and his dead companion had performed.  Odushéyu recounted Patróklo's attempts to storm the walls of the Lázpayan fortresses, climbing with his hands and bare feet, too impatient to wait for ladders to be constructed.  That had been the highlight of the campaign's early months.  Agamémnon recalled how, on the island of Lámno, Patróklo had chopped down a tree in the grove sacred to Apúluno.  The act had demonstrated clearly the contempt in which the Ak'áyan attackers held the local god of gates.  No doubt that had helped them take Lámno's small cities more easily.  The dead warrior had been afraid of nothing, they all agreed.  Ak'illéyu's foster brother had set himself against foreign gods as well as Assúwan men, in his pursuit of honor, in his quest for areté.  Patróklo's name would live forever in the tales that men told of valor in war.
     
    "Díwo is to blame for our quarrel," Agamémnon said, throwing a heavy arm over the T'eshalíyan's shoulders.  "You and I should never have been anything but the best of friends.  The god was the one who put it into my heart to take your woman, you know.  Ai, Lady Artémito should have shot her invisible arrows of plague and killed 'Iqodámeya, so that this would never have happened."
     
    Ak'illéyu's breath began to come harsh and quick, fury rising again in his dark-rimmed eyes.
     
    "His anger is not forgotten after all," Idómeneyu whispered to Odushéyu, his forehead lined with worry.
     
    "It is not that," the broader man murmured back.  "Look at the woman.  He does not even see her."
     
     
    'Iqodámeya crouched in the opening of the overlord's tent as the