Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (3 page)

Then a band of Libúwan mercenaries had deserted their fortress post in the Mízriyan delta, raiding the towns they were meant to guard. They carried Diwoméde off into the western desert, along with other goods that they fancied had some value – jars of imported wine and perfumed oil, jewelry of heavy gold and precious stones, cattle, horses, women who knew how to weave linen cloth. He marched alongside donkeys and ox-carts through semi-arid grazing lands and barren deserts, from one oasis to another. The white kilts of Mízriya gave way to narrow loincloths. Woolen wigs and shaved chins were replaced by pointed beards and a long braid at each man’s temple. These Libúwans had little more use for lame slaves than his former masters and Diwoméde expected to be abandoned at any moment. It seemed it would be his fate to die in this trackless, arid wilderness, his body unburied, his soul unwept.

But then they came to the village ruled by the maas, a man who had served in the Mízriyan army in his youth. Here, a month’s journey from the great river, this Libuwan had built a Mízriyan house, dressing in Mízriyan style, even taking a Mízriyan name. This Satmarítu was intrigued to hear about the Ak’ayan campaign in Mízriya from this odd-looking captive. On a whim, he bought Diwoméde, pleased to have one of the notorious sea people in his household. Grinning broadly, the
maas
paraded his new acquisition about the settlement by the sea, urging Diwoméde to sing fragments of the great epic songs of Ak’áyan heroes. Returning home finally, the big man brought the slave into the courtyard of his house, showing off his prize to his wife and youngest daughter. The older woman said nothing about the purchase, but she was clearly displeased. Dazed, exhausted, Diwoméde hardly knew how to behave or how to feel about his new home.

Then the daughter of the
maas
stood before him. With her bright, laughing eyes, Náfriti smiled. In that moment, he had had a sudden vision of an easy captivity, of lying with this young woman with the gleaming hair and the coppery skin. If she desired him, as her smile seemed to suggest, he would pass the years in idleness, with plenty to eat and drink, his only duty to give her pleasure.

But it had not been as easy as that. Náfriti was hardly more than a child, no more than sixteen, and, like many girls her age, prone to smile at anything. She was not nearly as taken with him as he had imagined, either. He was merely a toy that she enjoyed playing with on occasion, a source of mild amusement to be discarded the moment something of greater interest came along. She only allowed him to lie with her one time. “So,” she said blandly, afterward, “that is what it is like to have an uncircumcised man. I always wondered.” With that, she sent him away to scrub the floor.

More often, she called upon him to sing a tale of his native Ak’áiwiya while the
maas
entertained guess. Then, to impress their visitors, Náfriti would demand that Mirurí punish him for some trifling misstep that he made inadvertently made, earlier in the day. Her smile, Diwoméde soon learned, meant only that her thoughts amused her. Those thoughts might as easily mean pain for him as pleasure.

Satmarítu was as capricious as his child, overlooking outright defiance one moment, the next ordering many blows of Mirurí’s rod for spilling a few drops of beer purely by accident. The headman had determined to rid himself of Diwoméde on just such a whim. Diwoméde had tripped and dropped a tray of figs that he was carrying, falling into Náfriti’s startled lap. She laughed with great hilarity at the mishap. Even her usually dour mother found the incident highly entertaining. But Satmarítu leapt to his feet in outraged fury and administered twenty heavy blows with the shepherd’s flail that he always carried to betoken his high rank. As soon as Náfriti went to bed that evening, the
maas
gave the order that Diwoméde was to be sold the following morning. Mirurí was to see to it at dawn.

Yes, this morning Satmarítu would announce to his daughter that her favorite plaything was gone. She might droop slightly, perhaps pout a little, until the
maas
had enough of it. Then he would threaten violence and she would retire to the women’s quarters to sulk. But, in a day or two, she would find someone or something else to torment. Within a phase of the moon, no doubt, she would have forgotten that he ever existed. At least he would be rid of them all, Diwoméde told himself. No more would he be Satmarítu’s minstrel or Náfriti’s pet. Even the hard work of plowing fields seemed more appealing. But no, he reflected, the last crop of barley had withered before it ripened, in this scorched land. If it had not been for the supplies carried in by donkey caravan and by ship, the
maas
could not have sustained his trading post and his solid Mízriyan house. Drought and famine had long since driven most of the native Libúwans eastward to the fertile, black land of the Great King of Mízriya.

It had been four years since he had left his fortress in Ak’áiwiya, Diwoméde realized with a shock. Four cycles of sowing and reaping had passed, away from Ak’áiwiya’s peninsulas and islands. A wave of homesickness swept over him as he thought of the high-walled citadel that he had once commanded in the kingdom of Argo. It seemed almost a dream, that he had once occupied a place of honor and respect. But it was true. He had spent many a day seated upon a hard throne of gypsum, looking out over a great room, long and wide, with rows of plastered benches lining the walls. There had been paintings on those walls of lightweight chariots drawn by big, Ak’áyan horses, of warriors marching forth wearing helmets made of boars’ tusks. In the center of that mégaron lay the great hearth, four bronze-plated pillars rising from its corners, supporting the roof with its smoke-hole. He wondered whether the fortress still stood. Or had it been taken by raiders from the se, its timber roofs and pillared halls sent up in flames, its storerooms plundered? Were his Argives still waiting for his return? Or had his serving men all been slaughtered, his serving women carried off into slavery in another land?

A thought came to him in that moment, one that cut him more deeply than all the rest. He thought of Dáuniya, the woman who had shared his bed ever since the Ak’áyans had sacked the city of Tróya over a decade before. That war, his first, seemed so long ago. It might as well have been a story he had heard as a child, a mere fantasy. Still, he remembered as clearly as if it had been yesterday the column of smoke rising over the stone walls of that fallen citadel, the defeated enemy of Ak’áiwiya. The keening lamentations of the captive Tróyan women still rang in his ears. The sight of them had long haunted his sleep, their long, filthy skirts, their hair disheveled, scraping their cheeks with their fingernails until the blood came, tearing at their bare breasts. Dáuniya had originally been among them, a thing of some value that he had purchased with two bronze helmets. Reflecting on that now, he found himself wondering, had she trembled there in Tróya, seeing some of her companions raped and others killed? Had she once felt as humiliated and despondent as he did now?

At that time, long ago, Diwoméde had taken her to his bed without a thought, never questioning his right to do so. In just the same way, some of the victorious warriors took the younger male prisoners, as if they had been women. His spirit now quailed at the memory. Had his Dáuniya felt used and toyed with, lying with him, as he had with Náfriti? It occurred to him, too, that he had often rested his feet in her lap and thought nothing of it. Had this made her cheeks burn with shame, as his had when his master had forced him to be used as a footstool? She had never said as much, never complained of either action. But then, a slave would not dare. He wished more than anything that he could see her now, could make her a gift of a bit of silver, or the magical Mízriyan glass, the famous blue-green faience. He would tell her that he never meant to cause her harm….

Diwoméde’s unhappy reverie was interrupted by the agreement reached between his guard and the merchant on the shore. As Mirurí hurried back to Satmarítu’s house for a razor and a clean tunic, Bikurnár used the knife that he kept tucked in his belt to cut the slave’s hands free. Gesturing with the yellow blade, Birkurnár ordered Diwoméde to go to the edge of the salt waters and wash himself. The shallows of the sea were muddy and stank of human waste. But, grateful to be able to ease the pain in his shoulder, the Ak’áyan meekly obeyed. Perhaps, he thought, he could wander just a little farther out. Just a few more steps and he could begin swimming, possibly even reach one of the ships out there in the deeper part of the harbor. But the tall Káushan was watching him too closely. Birkurnár soon ordered Diwoméde back to the dusty marketplace. Silently, the slave complied. It was said that the gods took away a man’s honor when he became a slave, Diwoméde reflected. In that moment, he knew that it was true.

The area was rapidly filling with people of every nation. Those who had come to sell spread out their goods on the hard-packed earth. They set up small canopies of leather or felt for shade, before squatting behind their wares. All along the shores of the bay, cheerful voices called to each other in greeting. Other men and women came to pick up the choicest figs, freshly caught snails, fishes large and small, or water birds for the day’s meal.

Behind a small pavilion, Bikurnár arranged his own wares – a row of naked slaves awaiting sale. With a curt command, he directed Diwoméde to the end of the line. Then the merchant hopped up on a raised dais to call out to his potential customers. Diwoméde sat where the merchant had directed him, his knees up and his elbows resting on his knees. The other captives squatted, their heads down, watching the tall Káushan with sidelong glances.

“We are not bound,” whispered one, a short and sturdy man who had lost an arm long ago. “This is our chance to escape. Watch for my signal.”

The man beside him grunted. “They have not bound us because there is no need.”

On the other side, another noted, “We have all been branded on the shoulder blade with the name of Mízriya’s Great King. Our rank is obvious to anyone who sees us. There would be no refuge for us anywhere in this trading post.”

The first began to argue, “But if we are quick, we might get past…”

The second slave cut him off, hissing, “Beyond the village is the desert and certain death.” Neither spoke another word. Nor did either one make a move to run away.

Listening, Diwoméde lay his forehead down on his arms. It was true, he knew. Escape was impossible, tempting though it might be. In Mízriya there had been too many Káushan mercenaries about to make a move. Here, the land was so hostile, the overcrowded villages of the Black Land seemed prosperous by comparison.

A spindly Libúwan man halted at Bikurnár’s greeting and glanced over the human wares. “Not much call for slaves these days, is there?” he asked cheerfully.

The merchant sighed deeply and shook his head at his inventory. “Ostrich feathers are more valuable, I will admit. These dregs are not even mine. I am only selling them on commission.”

The Libúwan nodded sympathetically, stroking his pointed beard. “Things have certainly changed a great deal in our lifetime. In my father’s day, we considered the fishers and herders of the Lower Kingdom our kinsmen. If we had a bad year, we could take refuge among the swamps and reed-beds of the Mízriyan delta. We could live handsomely on fish and waterfowl until we could steal a herd of cattle from one of the rich temple estates, there. I tell you, my father never had to fear the Great King of Mízriya, when he was young!

“That is true,” Bikurnár agreed. “When the delta fell on hard times or the men were conscripted into the Great King’s army, they could always flee into the desert, too. At one time, even escaped slaves could find a home in Libúwa! But this drought has changed everything. The people of the marsh no longer welcome their desert brothers. They see Libúwans as a threat.”

“Yes,” sighed the Libúwan, shaking his head so that the narrow braids before his ears waved merrily, “since that great battle with the people of the Inner Sea, every one of Mízriya’s northern towns is full of mercenaries. You can hardly get away with a raid anymore, much less an invasion. And if they catch a man, they bind him by the elbows and stake him out in the desert. I myself lost a brother and two cousins that way…”

Diwoméde could not suppress a quiet moan at the memory of being tethered in that agonizing position. He had survived three interminable days that way, while Mízriya celebrated the Great King’s victory over the Ak’áyans and their allies. Then, half dead, he had been delivered to his first master. How many times had he been dragged to the market place, since then? He was no longer sure. But if he had not been carried off by the Libúwans, he would have been taken to work in the desert mines by now, the worst fate that a slave could suffer.

Diwoméde kept his head down so that he would not have to meet the curious stares of passers by. So he only heard when Bikurnár’s conversation broke off suddenly. Mirurí’s wheezing followed shortly, but the slave still did not raise his eyes. “Let us shave his legs first,” the heavy man gasped, panting heavily from the exertion of hurrying. “Here, Diwoméde, stretch out your legs,” he commanded, squatting beside the slave.

Diwoméde glimpsed the sun’s bright reflection on the bronze razor, its shape like that of a small ax. A sudden memory assailed him like sharp pang, a vision of an earlier time when another shining blade, clasped in another heavy hand, had come down on him. The agony in his foot came back to him clearly, as strong as the day when his toes had been cut off. Panic swept over him. On all fours, he scrambled away from Mirurí, his heart pounding, crying out incoherently. He flailed mindlessly at the hands that would have gripped him.