People of the Inner Sea (The Age of Bronze) (26 page)

"So the Náshiyan emperor won his war in the southeast?" Idómeneyu asked.

Tushrátta nodded ruefully.  "With that success, Tudqáliya could afford to send a portion of his army west to Lúkiya, after all, even before the war season was over.  The miserable Náshiyans were led by a man every true-hearted Lúkiyan must despise, Madduwátta.  That rat deposed me and he now rules Lúkiya, may Tarqún split his head with lightning!  That was the end of my power.  I took refuge here in Millewánda.  I mean, what choice did I have?  At the news of my defeat, the other western kingdoms sent ships to Alásiya, and soldiers and chariots to fight in the southeast and the north.  So Tudqáliya's power is great again, in spite of everything!  His empire has the exact same boundaries it did under his father.  And I am ruined."  His anger and energy spent, the Lúkiyan threw up his hands in defeat.

Idómeneyu nodded sympathetically.  "I understand how you feel," he said.  "You are not the only king who could not hold his realm.  But now tell me about Millewánda.  Who is king here?"

Tushrátta shrugged.  "I suppose I have as much claim to that post as anyone.  The previous king died at Tróya last summer.  He had played Náshiya off against Ak'áiwiya for thirty years.  A clever man, but he left no heirs.  There is only the council of elders now and they disagree on everything.  Each nationality takes a different side.  The Kep'túriyans hate Ak'áiwiya and favor Tudqáliya.  But the Lúkiyans oppose Náshiya and despise the emperor.  So do the other Ak'áyans.  But they do nothing.  Everyone is content to wait for the great hero of the past to rise from the dead and come to their rescue."  He shook his head in disgust.  "Sheep and fawns, all of them!"

"Who are they waiting for?" Idómeneyu asked, confused.  "Do Lúkiyans honor 'Erakléwe's shade?"

Tushrátta laughed bitterly.  "No, they are all waiting for Piyamáradu.  The old pirate's life ended tragically, you know.  In the end, he was forced to give himself up to the Náshiyan emperor and live out his years as a hostage.  By the hair of Tarqún's head, they made him a horse-trainer.  What a fate!"

Idómeneyu groaned with sympathy, shutting his eyes as if to shield them from an unpleasant sight.  "But, Tushrátta, he must be a very old man by now.  How can he help Millewánda?"

The Lúkiyan leader rolled his dark eyes.  "Piyamáradu is not just old, my friend.  He is long dead!  But people admired him so much, they named their children after him.  Prince Paqúr of Wilúsiya even swore to take up his ancestor's task and avenge the women of Tróya."  He chuckled as Idómeneyu's face hardened.  "Of course, Paqúr's career was a bit shorter than his predecessor's."

The guests laughed heartily at that.  Idómeneyu scratched his head.  "But tell me, Tushrátta, what does this have to do with Millewánda?  What does it matter how children are named?"

With barely concealed impatience, their host explained.  "When a man is greatly admired in his lifetime, people tell wondrous tales of him after his death.  He grows taller and stronger with every generation that passes.  He mates with goddesses, sires children who are half-human, half-beast and who possess miraculous powers.  That is what has happened with the great pirate.  People now say that Tróyan Paqúr was no son of Alakshándu's, but Piyamáradu himself, returning to the land of his birth.  Even now the old marauder is not really dead, you see, but spending his days as a guest of lady Dáwan's daughter in the far west.  One day, when Assúwa most needs him, he will return in his black ship and a new golden age will begin.  Or maybe it is silver.  Or tin.  One of those precious metals.  I can never remember which."

Idómeneyu chuckled.  "Ai gar, let them wait for their magical pirate.  We have our own plans."

aaa

When Odushéyu drew his ships up in the harbor between Tróya's twin headlands, Ainyáh was on the shore to greet him, armed and armored, supported by spearmen and by archers in chariots.  The exile's men were dismayed at the sight and prepared to turn their ferry boats around and head back out to deep water, immediately.  But the It'ákan leader insisted that they pull the vessels up on the beach.  With swaggering bravado, he strode out to meet the Wilúsiyan forces, his hands raised, empty of weapons.  "What is this?" he bellowed to Ainyáh, gesturing toward the bristling array of soldiery.  "We are your allies, your friends, are we not?"

Unsmiling, Ainyáh called to his men to lower their spears.  To Odushéyu, he said grimly, "We saw ships coming and assumed you were raiders.  Now I see who you are.  Welcome."  Without another word, the mercenary commander led the way to the citadel that still dominated the plain with its gleaming, limestone walls.

As the visitors approached Tróya, Odushéyu regaled Mirurí with tales of the last year's war and It'áka's prominent role in it.  "I alone of all Ak'áiwiya's heroes saw the fortress in its glory.  You see, when the army entered to sack it, night was upon us and by daylight it was burning.  Ai, but the place was a wonder to behold, Mirurí, a finer citadel than any in Mízriya I am sure."

Seeing that the Libúwan navigator doubted him, Odushéyu said, "The city is not as large as some, but the whole of it stands according to plan, you see.  Knósho is quite a bit larger, but completely haphazard in its arrangement of rooms and courtyards.  The other Kep'túriyan palaces were never any better, their rulers adding to them all the time, a room here, a wing there.  Even the best Ak'áyan citadels are completely irregular in shape, following the contours of the hills that they sit upon.  But Tróya is symmetrical in its layout.  The outer walls outline the top of the hill, of course.  That is necessary.  But within those walls the houses are placed in concentric rings, on terraces that rise like a great staircase to the palace on the crest of the hill.  The dwellings are large, free-standing and roomy, often three stories tall.  They have many windows, especially on the upper levels and all are painted in bright colors inside, just like the textiles woven by the women.  The houses are built very well, too, with the foundations and the lower courses made of stone, and with timber and brick above.

"The streets are wide, too.  Chariots drive all through the town.  The main thoroughfare runs straight from the southern gate, up the hill, to the palace.  Such a wide, straight road you will never see in Ak'áiwiya.  And look at the fortification walls, Mirurí.  Have you ever seen such as these?  Look at the slope there at the bottom, how smooth it is.  When you put ladders up to scale those walls, the angle makes all your men vulnerable to the defending archers on top of the walls.  Ai, we were never able to climb those walls during the war.  And look, they have rebuilt the battlements up at the top."

Odushéyu caught the Libúwan by the arm in his enthusiasm, as they approached the entrance.  "And those towers, just look at them.  Do you know what is inside the big one on the northeast?  A great well, as wide across as two men stretched full length, dug deep into the rock below.  It is no wonder it took us a year to sack this place."

Mirurí nodded patronizingly, but he was unimpressed by what he saw.  "It is well constructed," he agreed, pleasing his companion.  "From the look of the road we are on and that big tower guarding it, the southern gate is the main one.  But what are those pillars before it?  They hold nothing up.  Is it something you Ak'áyans destroyed?"

"No, no, those are the obelisks to the Tróyan gods," Odushéyu explained.  Whispering in the Libúwan' ear, he added, "Those ignorant barbarians erected six.  They have no concept of the sacredness of number."

Mirurí shook his head, clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth.  "Yes, any fool knows that seven is the holy number."

Odushéyu's eyes widened in surprise and he jerked his head back from his companion's.  "Seven!  Idé, you have a mind like an ox hoof.  What kind of number is seven?  There are no threes in it.  No, the magic number is nine."  He strode ahead of the Libúwan quickly, shaking his head, muttering to himself, "Seven!  The man is a barbarian."

Before the wide-open gate, Ainyáh paused briefly to salute the stone columns, raising his hand to his heart, his forehead, and the sky.  "We have made a few changes since you were here," he said curtly to Odushéyu.  "We walled up the Horse's Leg."  Then he led the visitors on into the city.

"What did he do?" Mirurí asked Odushéyu as the two casually saluted the idols in passing.

"He says they walled up the Horse's Leg.  That was the name they gave the western gate.  It was a minor entrance, in any case, and it had no door.  The winding passage from outside was narrow and they thought the archers could defend it adequately.  They found that we Ak'áyans were a little too clever, though," he laughed.  "That is the way we came in."

Mirurí was still confused.  "You came in a horse's leg?  That must have been a big horse…."

Inside the gate, Odushéyu was shocked into silence.  Though the main entrance-way remained and a paving had been added, the city's whole aspect had been transformed.  The houses, burned or shaken to their foundations the summer before, had been rebuilt.  But this time, every available space had been crammed with dwellings.  A myriad of small, rudely constructed buildings filled the once-wide streets.  Unpainted walls of mixed stone and brick rose along narrow, winding alleys.  The buildings appeared rough and unstable, without any beauty.  None rose above two stories.

"By all the dáimons of 'Aidé!" Odushéyu exclaimed, looking around with his mouth agape.  "What happened here, Ainyáh?  You could at least mix a little lime and plaster to cover the walls of the houses.  Ai, did we kill all your builders last year?"

Ainyáh snorted disdainfully.  "Not quite.  We built quickly, fearing another attack."

"In the winter?" Odushéyu asked, incredulous.  "Are you mad?  You are the last man I would expect to be carried off by the maináds."

With a furious glare, Ainyáh explained, "You Ak'áyans are not the only pirates on the Inner Sea.  Here, take a little bread."

Still dazed by the unexpectedly shabby view, Odushéyu stared uncomprehendingly at the mercenary from Kanaqán.  But Mirurí, enjoying the It'ákan's dismay and caring nothing about the architecture of the place, heard only the final directive.  He eagerly took one of the round loaves offered to the visitors by women who had flocked out of a nearby house.  These people were thin, the Libúwan noted, their faces hard and angular, their cheeks marked with rows of scars.  The women wore long linen robes, as Assúwan custom demanded, but the cloth was undyed and without adornment.  Their dark and curly hair was too short to be held in braids and it flew continually in their faces, caught by the incessant wind.  They seemed to outnumber the men considerably.  There was not a single smile among them.

"The kingdom of Wilúsiya is cut off from the city of Qattúsha," Ainyáh told his guests from overseas as they dined in his dark, little house that evening.  "There is no Náshiyan army close to Tróya to menace us or you.  Nor is one likely to come this way.  No messenger has been able to penetrate the now hostile kingdom of Pála that lies between us and the Náshiyan heartland.  Emperor Tudqáliya may not even know that he has lost this outpost to Ak'áiwiya."

Odushéyu and his men called out the name of their sky god in triumph, hearing this news, and clapped each other on the back.  "Great Díwo!  Ai, Mirurí," Odushéyu exulted to the less enthusiastic Libúwan, "you made a wise decision when you joined forces with me.  Lady At'ána is always on my side."

Their host watched without emotion, waiting for them to be still.  "Wilúsiya's new king is little better off than Alakshándu was with your armies camped outside," Ainyáh continued.  "Antánor is barely in control of his capital city and cannot maintain order in the countryside, at all.  Tróya is overcrowded, as you saw when you came in, and we are under siege more or less continually.  The pressure never relents.  When local disorder begins to subside, T'rákiyan barbarians come from the north and raid our countryside.  When the T'rákiyans sail back to their homes, sated with plunder for a time, Wilúsiya's commoners rise up again to besiege the city.  They blame king Antánor for all their misfortunes."

"Idé," Odushéyu said somberly, "we have heard that tale more than once in our travels."

Ainyáh stared hard at the It'ákan, wondering at the man's statement.  What had happened across the Inner Sea in Ak'áiwiya?  The mercenary longed to ask about Agamémnon, overlord of the Ak'áyan alliance.  Why was the high wánaks not beside Odushéyu?  Ainyáh especially wanted to know about the planned Assúwan expedition that had failed to materialize.  But he did not want to reveal his ignorance with questions.  Better to lull his visitors into feeling secure, he decided, ply them with undiluted wine, and wait for the truth to come out on its own.  For now, he would give them information, demonstrating his solidarity with them, his loyalty.