Book One: first draft of "Merlin the Archer" by Alex Call

Merlin the Archer: Forward
Some years ago I went to an exhibition of stone-age art at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. The cave paintings of Lascaux were there in full-scale reproduction, and there were artifacts from the period of the early, late, and neolithic periods. One piece was plainly some sort of cribbage board. It was a foot-long section of deer antler with three side-by-side rows of peg holes. One end of the antler was carved into a perfectly representational face of a deer. The deer’s face could have been made carved in Classical Greece or Rome, the Renaissance, or in the twentieth century. It was without a doubt the work of a mind that was identical to our modern minds.
I was raised on the Greek myths. I have always been drawn to the Bronze Age, to the time of the emerging civilizations. Mary Renault’s Theseus was my favorite hero. I thought that the Homeric age must have started much earlier. Greece is simply not that far not that far from Sumer and Egypt. The Great Pyramids were built in 2,600 BCE. The mud-brick Ziggurats of Sumer around the same time. Stonehenge was built around 2,200 BCE, give or take a few years. All of these giant monuments required planning and organization equal to anything we do today. Imhotep, the architect of the first of the pyramid, the stepped pyramid at Saqqara, was plainly an engineering genius.
A few years ago an important burial was unearthed at Amesbury, England, a short distance from Stonehenge. The forty-five year old man in the grave, who had suffered a bad knee injury late in life, was obviously important. He had gold hair ornaments, the first found in the British Isles. He was buried with an impressive cache of archery equipment. The archaeologists tested his DNA. He was from the region of the Alps in Europe, not from England. He was buried alongside a younger man, possibly his son.
How did a man from the Alps end up in an important grave next to, and from the same time as, Stonehenge? He didn’t walk there. He came by ship. How were the stones of Stonehenge moved? Aliens? Mystic power of Druids? Sorry, though I wish we could find them, we haven’t found the spacecraft and the Druids belong to a period two thousand years after Stonehenge; they never used the ring of stones. Stonehenge was forgotten. The Egyptians moved giant stones hundreds of miles with ships.
In my mind’s eye I saw a young boy, stolen by raiders from his village in the Alps and sold into slavery down what is now the Adriatic Sea. From there, it was not far to ancient Crete, Sargon of Akkad’s Mesopotamia, and the Egypt of Pharaoh Pepi. I saw the boy grow into a man, a rational man in a world of dark superstition. His companions included people who were heroes of the later Greek Myths, prophets of the later Bible. He witnessed events that we know took place. He leaned to move giant stones. A stone fell on his leg, and he needed the help of a famous healer. He ended up in a far green land across the wild sea, the place where tin came from in this early Bronze Age. I have named this healer The Merlin- a name borrowed from a much later time. But maybe that name is much older than we give it credit for.
I did a lot of research on the Alps and Balkans, Greece, Sumer, Egypt, and the late neolithic in Britain to buff up my knowledge of the early Bronze Age, but I have purposefully taken vast liberties with the facts as we know them. My chronologies are all possible, but this is not a history, it’s an adventure. It’s a story of a rational man in an irrational, fear-plagued world. He left a monument that he thought might help his people. He left them Stonehenge. I hope you might be moved to study ancient cultures. What is actually there is as fascinating as any tale of aliens or mystic powers.

And now, my story…..


Mata
Mata named me Stek. I’ve had so many other names now that she and that name are both beyond the windings of shroud-cloth, the river of death, the ritual blood on the great stones. The chill fog that pains my bones binds me to this spot. They are calling for me over the field, by the stones where the fire burns. I know I must pull my aching body up and go. But I wish I could linger with Mata’s memory for a moment. Her face is still soft in my mind’s eye as she was in those long ago times.
Herakul, Enheduanna, and my sweet Vila told me our fates are in the hands of the Gods. It’s hard to say otherwise. Surely, if I wished, I could see divine guidance moving me like a pawn on a nomarch’s Senet board. Big choices seem to happen to us, beyond our puny will’s desire and plans. But there are other forces at work, ones that lie in the deeper places of our minds. Some of these forces are good and others evil. As I lie here on my cold, hard bed the distinctions of light and dark are blurred and chaotic. Now that Aon has passed, there doesn’t seem to be much for me to hold on to; nothing much to live for.
Still, it’s been a wondrous life. Whether it’s the Gods’ or my own doing, or both, I have lived a life full of vast opening. And though my shade slips away in this weak hour, I am glad I was able to do some things for the sake of others even weaker and less certain than me.
They are beating the drums and calling my most recent name. My people, my flock of sheep. May the so-called gods come help me rise and accept their honor, not for myself but for how it helps them. Dark times lie ahead as far as the eye can see, but who can say what will come next? The Gods? Perhaps, my friend, perhaps.


2 Awa

Mata’s voice rang clear and echoed from the mountain’s sheer, cold face above me. “Stek!” “Stek” again and a third time, ever diminishing. I whistled sharply at Tulli and she ran up the steep green meadow, barking at the sheep and goats. I walked down the hillside to make sure the animals kept moving towards home. They wanted to linger, eating the sweet grass of the meadow- flowers time. I looked out across the narrow valley at the towering, snow-clad peaks that seemed so close. A breath of cool air blew down from great Carn-Ta, his mighty flanks rising ever upwards to the sharp crags. From his breast flowed the Voda, the gift and milk of Awa.
In my short years I had seen the snows come and go nine times that I could remember, though I knew there were earlier years that had slipped from my mind, leaving only a handful of pictures: a sunny day, Mata looking at me as she bent over by the fire, Tulli as a little pup jumping on my tummy. This was my favorite season, the time of the meadow flowers and honey-bees, when the Voda ran clear and I could catch little trutta with my flint-tipped spear and net. Awa didn’t mind, as long as we left some fish for her, with an offering of flowers, and goat’s milk in a cup. Awa bred the trutta and the sheep and goats and the meadow flowers and even me, Mata said.
Awa was in her grotto, high above the valley. It was difficult to reach her in the snow time, but a joy now. Mata would take us up with our offerings and we would sit before her. Awa looked a little like Mata, true, and like the other women of the valley: round, with breasts and wide hips. But she was rounder than Mata. Plainly Awa fed better than Mata did, because the Goddess had all the people to feed her. Mata told me that Awa was the Goddess of all, even the Oddars.
Our dog Tulli and I prodded the bleating animals, complaining as they always did, down the mountainside to our house. Mata was in front, stirring the bir bowl with her wooden spoon. She wore her plain dress of scraped sheepskin, the fringes of which trailed in the dirt. Her long, dark hair was swept back and bound with a twist of leather. She wiped sweat from her face with the back of her hand as she stirred the pot. The smoke had reddened her eyes somewhat. Her charm against the vaskan, the evil eye, a round carved wooden eye colored blue with the pigment of ground flowers, swung on a cord from her neck. The smell of the bir was pungent, wet, and sweet, like the smell of Mata herself. The door to our little round house was open, letting the summer air into our single dark room. Mata had swept the floor with buck brush and hung flowers from the walls to make the smell better, though it never smelled too different from the sheep and goats that slept there with us. The braided plait of skorda had its own thick smell, but I was used to it, as we left it hanging on the door above the threshold to keep out were-wulfen and shape-changing witches and the like. If only we had a hunter we could count on to kill the wulfen, Mata might not have been so fearful, but Arkan had been gone for many years now, and since we weren’t in the village, wulfen would carry off our animals if they were outside at night. Perhaps Arkan would return, but I thought not. Mata didn’t cry for him. As for witches, there was no real way to stop their power; you could only try to stay on their good side. Besides, most women were witches in the service of Awa the Great Goddess.
“I am old,” she told me one night as we sat in front of our house and looked up at the brilliant stars, “Arkan is gone, and the other men have younger girls. It is Awa’s way. We women are like flowers, first we come out of the ground, then we flower, then we dry up and wither away, like old Shutta!”
We laughed at the thought of the crone of the village, an old lady of more than fifty snows, who endlessly harped on people for their real and imagined shortcomings.
Mata poked at our little fire with a stick. “It is fine,”she said.
I thought for while and then asked, “if women are flowers, then what are men?”
Mata laughed, “Men are like roosters. They crow and puff up and strut around like they are big stuff, until the wulfen or the women’s axes take them!”

I put the sheep and goats in the stone-walled pen and sat on a log near the fire pit and watched Mata stir the bir. Bir and curd cheese and mutton was our food. In this time we had abundance. Mutton soup slowly cooked in the big bowl on the hot stones. Mata had added some roots and leaves, even a few flowers Awa had taught us were good. Some were bad, the ones the witches used to curse and kill. Awa’s eye above our door protected us from them, or so Mata told me.
I believed that, why shouldn’t I? I had never known other than a good life, except for hunger and cold. All had those. Others had died or gone missing, but that was the way of Awa and the other Gods: Ock the thunderer, son of Awa, Kulla the shape-changer, Arta the huntress, younger sister of Awa, the Mother. Beyond all the other Gods and Goddesses and spirits of the mountains, trees, streams, and secret places, Awa was the World, the changing of the seasons, giver of milk and bir and fire. She was the secret of new babies and the taker of souls at the end of life into her bosom. It seemed to me that Mata and I were blessed by Awa. Beyond the high mountain passes were the lands of the Oddars, those who hunted us, but here we were safe, in this land of amazing beauty and bounty. But still Mata lived in endless, dark fear of the curses of others and the unseen spirits of the dark unknown.

I saw my friend Tarn running up the path from the village. He seemed excited. It was early morning, and the sun hadn’t reached into the blue valley yet. Smoke trails drifted up from the scattered houses down on small bench of flat land just above the Voda. Far beyond, I saw where the valley of our sacred water passed around the huge bend of steep peaks. Awa only knew what lay farther than that. Someday soon I would be a full man; then I would go and find out. Mata told me I had thirteen snows. One more year? The time was in the hands of Awa.
Tarn got closer. He was wearing what we all wore: scraped sheepskin shirt and pants, with the long shirt gathered by a belt of sheep-leather. His deerskin shoes were better than mine, I thought: they had fine, tall leggings tied almost to his knees. His bow was slung across his skinny shoulders, his quiver on his back. His cap was missing, though we usually wore sheep-skin fleece caps to ward off the chill. Tarn looked a little different from most of us. His skin was a shade darker, his hair darker. Mine was light, my skin light. Mata’s hair was a dark reddish color, though now it was streaked with grey. People whispered, “Tarn’s father was an Oddar, maybe a Danu or worse!” Some thought Tarn’s mother, Belit, was a witch. She was feared, but also respected. She could heal the sick sometimes, with the grace of Awa, she said. Tarn had never had a father around. It was also whispered that Belit initiated young boys into the arts of Awa, the Seductress. My own manhood was with me now, and I secretly desired her as did all men. She was thin and large breasted. Unlike other people, she feared not to speak to anyone. There was no one in the valley who had more authority with Awa. So, if she was a witch, all the better to do whatever she said. If you crossed her, she could strike you down with the vaskan or a curse.
“Stek, “said a breathless Tarn, “Oddars!”
“Oddars,” I said. I’d heard this so many times. “Where are the Oddars this time?”
“On the other side of the pass of the Voda. Ruuk saw them; he wouldn’t lie!”
“Ruuk likes to drink a lot of bir, “I laughed. Ruuk was a hunter who was famous for his story telling. He had, to hear him tell it, been down to place where the Voda met the endless water. He tended to fall asleep around the fire after too much bir and story-telling. People liked Ruuk’s tales, but didn’t believe everything he said. He said, for example, that where the Voda met the endless water, there were houses that have wings like great birds and flew by magic on the waters as fast as the wind! He also said that there Oddar villages of many houses where the people were more numerous than all the sheep of the valley!
There were many stories told. There were shape-changing men that lived in deep caves, who came out and drank the blood of people while they slept. That there were flying horses and Goddesses with hair made of snakes, and ogres that threw stones the size of houses, and mostly, there were tales about how Oddars came and stole the young if they weren’t good. The Oddars ate the young.
I didn’t know what lay beyond the mountains, and the stories scared me, but Mata said, offer to Awa, and you’ll be safe. Still, wulfen prowled the night and sometime there were screams and sounds in the dark that made us draw the door- log tight after nightfall. I wondered about the endless waters and the flying houses, but put it out of my mind. I had sheep to care for.
Tran and I looked up the valley, to where great Carn-Ta rose. To left of the peak was a notch in the mountain wall. The pass. I had been up to it. Beyond were other mountains as far as could be seen, with jagged white peaks and deep valleys between, dark with forests and shadows. Tarn and I had boasted to each other that we would cross the pass and hunt the Oddars when were we men. Soon.
“Let’s go look.” I said.
Tarn looked at me as if I was crazy. But he said, “When?’
“We could take the nets and say we were fishing. Tomorrow.”
Tarn looked scared. He seemed to shrink even smaller and thinner than he was. I knew his time of manhood had come, but right now he looked like a child.
“Are you a rabbit, little Tarn? “ I teased.
“No. Tomorrow”
Suddenly, a rockslide came crashing down the far side of the valley. At first a small crackling slide, within a few seconds it had ripped away a side of the mountains. Boulders the size of houses thundered down, almost reaching the Voda. An omen. For good or bad, I couldn’t tell.

Late in the day, after I had brought the sheep down, I looked up the mountainside and saw a large hare hopping along at the top of the nearby meadow. Everyone knows hares are messengers of the hill –gods, and are dangerous if they cross your path, but I knew they were also good to stew. I grabbed my bow and quiver and slipped up the slope quietly. Mata liked me to bring a rabbit, a marmot, or any game to the pot. It was getting to be dusk, blue shadows lengthening from the peaks to the west, and I would have to be quick to avoid the wulfen. I made my way behind a line of large boulders. I could see the hare moving up ahead through the grass. A line of pines was a little higher up, and once the hare entered there, my chance to take it would be gone.
I am a very good shot with the bow, the best of all the boys, and better than many of the men. I took my first deer when I was only nine snows. Mata liked to say I must really be Arta the Huntress’s son for my prowess. I only know that I can see the trace of a shot, the rise and fall of the arrow, howt hw wind will carry or blunt or slip it sidways, in my mind before I let the arrow fly. I can feel it in my fingertips as they hold the arrow to the string. My bow always felt alive in my hands. It was made of ash-wood, my arrows fire –hardened and tipped with sharp flint. I had complete confidence I would soon take the hare. It seemed almost to be making it easy for me. It stopped and looked in my direction a few times while it nibbled on greenery. I froze and then stealthily crept closer after every pause. I thought I saw the hare look in my eyes once, but then it just put its head down and ate. The light was in my favor, being behind me. I was just a shadow. By some trick of the clouds and peaks, a last ray of sunlight lit up the rabbit as it reached the edge of the meadow, just near the trees. I slowly drew back my arrow and raised the bow into position to let fly. I loosed the arrow, but just at that very moment, the hare darted into the woods. I must have hit it, I thought; I was only a few lengths from it when I shot, and I rarely missed. I eased forward, looking for tell-tale blood or the dying hare itself, but found nothing at the edge of the forest. There was a game trail there; the branches were parted just enough in the thick weave of pine boughs to allow deer or wulfen to pass. The sunlight had flickered out and darkness was rising up from the floor of the valley. From far below I could hear the tumbling, rushing voice of the Voda. I knelt down and crawled into the opening in the branches. It was quite dark under the trees.
I waited, with the deadly stillness of the hunter, in silence for a few moments. Nothing; no sound. Then there was something up ahead in the dark. A tiny rustling sound, like rabbit feet on pine needles. I crept my way further into the woods. There was no sign of the hare, and I couldn’t find my arrow either, which irritated me; it took a long time to make one properly and I never liked to lose one. I was about to give up and turn around when I heard a new sound. It was a buzzing, like a bee or a hummingbird, then the sound rose in pitch and I knew it had to human. Or Godly. The woods are no place for humans after dark. Wulfen, bears, and also ogres and witches. I began to back out very slowly on all fours, but before I had gone a few feet I saw a light, like a candle flickering through the boughs. The humming noise continued. It sounded like a woman’s voice now, but whose? I inched deeper into the glade to see.
About twenty lengths in, the branches parted and I saw a clear space about ten lengths across. Why did I not know this place? I thought I knew every traila and glade. In the center was a large, rounded stone, more like an egg than any other shape. It was as big as two men. Near its top, a little ledge cut from the rock held a mutton-fat lamp, the kind we used in our house. It sputtered and flamed, its twisting light casting fantastic shadows on the circling trees and the grey stone. On top of the stone was the Goddess, Awa, in her normal form as a round-breasted, wide-hipped mother. The lamp underlit her face and made it seem as if she was dancing a slow, undulous dance. The humming seemed to be in concert with these magical movements. The sound was coming from a woman seated crossed legged before the stone. From the silhouette I knew at once it was Tarns mother, Belit. She had her back to me.
She sat still and did not turn around, though I accidentally snapped a twig underfoot and revealed my presence. She said, in a very quiet voice, “The hare and the hart, all the beasts of the wild are in the service of the Goddess. Awa knows us all and takes us to her bosom. Come here, Stek, and sit beside me. I would show you something.”
I awkwardly sat on the pine needles next to the beautiful Belit. She calmly turned her face towards mine and looked deeply into my eyes. She had twenty-five snows, twice what I had. Women had children at thirteen snows here. Her eyes flashed in the light of the flickering lamp. Her long dark hair fell in mysterious waves over her shoulders and her breasts, which were bare. She took my hands in hers.
“Look into my eyes and I will give the gift of the Goddesses’ mystery. It is time for you, since you are going to leave us forever very soon, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question, more like a quiet statement. I didn’t say a word. I was nervous and yet excited to be with her under these trees. I had never allowed myself to look directly on her face before. All was perfect proportion: her eyebrows were curved like strung bows and dark, her nose long and elegant, her lips full as vanna-grapes. She smiled at me looked deep in my eyes. Hers were blue, the rare color of witchcraft and the vaskan, the evil eye. I mustn’t cross her. I didn’t want to anyway. I was under her spell. I felt myself falling, but she squeezed my hands tighter and whispered, “Don’t be afraid. Let your eyes see.”
At first I saw only her face and flickering lamp shadows. Then something passed by like a great- antlered buck, only this was no deer, but something larger and more pwoewrful. Then there came more and more, and I found myself riding in a company of a huge herd of thse animals, alongside of men geared for war. Ahead rose a line of high walls. Arrows whistled past us. The walls were beyond my knowledge and the people I had never seen before. Some were dying, blood was everywhere. A loud voice called, “To the Archer!” It seemed a thousand voices raised the cheer. Suddenly, there was a strangely noble looking warrior rising up in front of me, about to strike with a heavy axe. I threw my arms up to ward off the blow, but my arms were caught by Belit’s soft, white arms, which pulled me close to her. I could feel her breasts touch me, her lips on my lips. My manhood was inflamed. She took me into her and I exploded in a fury of ecstasy.
Then she was up and she whispered. “You must go. Your time is now. Awa has a destiny for you far from this valley. Belit has seen it. She will be part of you as you travel. Flee now! You are no longer safe here, and you have nothing that binds you!”
She blew out the lamp and fled from the glade with the grace of a deer and everything fell silent again. What had happened? My manhood still throbbed with the first encounter with the Goddess.
Then I heard a scream far down the hill and instantly knew. It was Mata. The Oddars! I ran from the trees, bow drawn, my arrow ready. By the time I got to the house, the roof thatch was almost all burned. I shouted for Mata, but got no answer. Then I found her, legs wide apart, her belly slit wide open. Blood poured across the ground, dark in the light of the flames.
I cried out, “Oh Mata! Mata! Mata!”
Down below in the village other fires were going up. I looked back at her. She was with Awa now. I turned and ran in the half darkness of the thatch fires down the paths I knew so well. I reached the village. People were screaming and fighting the Oddars. There were many of the strangers, in bear-skin caps and wielding flint axes. I wheeled about, trying to make sense of it all. Where was Tarn, Shutta and the other villagers?
Suddenly a huge shape rose up next to me and my mind went dark.













3 Slave Boy

“ Aro!” shouted the short man as he hit me in the back of my shoulder with his heavy stick. I think I cried out, I know it hurt. He raised his stick to hit me again, but the Big Man held up his hand and said something. I threw up again into the water.
Awa! Awa! How could this be happening? The ship, the winged floating house that the tale-teller Ruuk had drunkenly spoken of, slid up and down on the rolling water. Not far, across the waves, tall cliffs rose out of the sea. Even taller blue and brown mountains floated in the haze beyond. I was sick from the motion of the waves as I had hardly ever been sick before. My throat was dry, but they gave me little water. I tried scooping water from the sea, but it tasted like blood. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t understand what had happened at all, except I knew I had been captured by the Oddars, who forced marched me and twenty others far down the Voda’s valley to where another river, bigger than the Voda, flowed. There was a big village there, many times bigger than ours. The Oddars had drunk much bir while we sat miserably on the ground, bound hand to foot in a line. Liia, Shutta, Tarn, seven young boys, the rest women of all ages. Belit was not among them. It all seemed like a dream to me, a nightmare after a wonder. Where had our hunters been? I saw Mata lying in the blood behind our house. Her image stayed in my mind. It lay over everything, like a mist through which I saw the new lands we passed through.
In a few days and after many long marches along a pathway at the river’s edge strewn with jagged stones, we reached the endless water, the sea. Waves washed against the rocky shore. Large white and grey birds circled overhead, calling out in loud, strident voices. I saw that Ruuk was right. Floating houses with giant wings flew across the water. They were called brakka – ships. Others, called jana, boats, were smaller, and men moved them with long poles, carved flat on one end. There was a much larger village where the big river met the endless water. It had tall houses that were white like snow, but the snow didn’t melt, even though the air was very hot away from our mountains. The houses were on top of each other up the side of a hill. I couldn’t count them; I had no numbers that great. Maybe there were more that ten hands, maybe twenty hands worth Maybe forty hands worth. It was beyond my mind’s comprehension.
There was a wooden road of logs that lay over the water to which the brakka were tied. The small waves of the endless water made the coarse sand hiss as the water withdrew before falling forward again. In spite of my misery I was drawn to the rising and falling water. It was like a spell being cast. Waves rose up out of the endless water in long lines, over and over without ceasing. Several brakka were there. We were to be loaded onto the biggest. It had a great wing of animal skins sewn together that hung from a tall pole at the center of the ship. Long poles stuck out from along the sides. Its master was a man who looked different from us and from the Oddars. Truly, the Oddars looked just like our hunters did, clad in skins and sheepskin and bearskin hats. But these ship men wore long shirts of cloth and blue sewn caps. They had big noses and long, dark beards. Many had tattoos on their faces. Some carried spears tipped with something other than flint. It was shiny and greenish, the hard metal called cypros: copper. The men were very mean to us. They beat us with leather whips and heavy sticks and only fed us a thin gruel. They sat on the shore, where a man had a place that sold bir and the red drink called vanna. The more they drank, the more we worried we would get beaten. But also, we wondered if maybe we could escape. I thought we could. Tarn sat miserably on the rocks and sand, shaking like a terrified rabbit.
But though the slavers got very drunk, they kept one or two watching us the whole time, armed with spears. We were tied together close, hand to foot, with sheep-gut. Even scratching one of our endless bug bites made the next slave groan and have to move. Unless we could somehow cut the cord, we were stuck. The air was stifling and windless for a whole day, and we lay strung out on the shore, exhausted and hopeless.
Finally, the slavers roused themselves from the bir stand and loaded us onto the ship. One of the men, a red-bearded giant, shoved the ship into the deeper water and then climbed on board as the brakka rocked in the waves. I couldn’t believe the feeling of the moving brakka. Despite myself, I felt a little excited to be on the flying house. They loosened our bonds after we had made deeper water and put us on hard benches. We had to pull the heavy poles, called oars. The Big Man showed us how. It was hard, and the women had a difficult time with it. Even though our people are strong and believe in Awa, many of them cried and whimpered. The women spit on themselves for luck and the blessing of Awa. The ship’s master, an angry looking man, short and thick, hit each of us with his stick to make us work the oars correctly. As we passed a rocky point, one of our women, a girl named Lulla, jumped suddenly over the side and began to try to reach the shore. The master smiled and picked up his bow and calmly shot her in the back. She twisted in the water in pain. I could see blood streaming red in the clear blue water. She put her arm up and then slumped forward and floated, unmoving, on the swell. The ship drew near her body, and one of the men reached out and yanked the arrow from her, and then we were past her. I watched her body bobbing on the waves, getting ever smaller. The master turned to us and said something in a harsh tone. We didn’t understand his words, but we knew what he meant: pull the oars.

Now, we had been on the sea for days. The swells had grown frighteningly tall and then gotten gentle again. Wind had blown and the sail had been raised. Rain had fallen and given us some coolness. The clouds had parted and the wind had died and we had rowed again until it felt that our arms would break off. Almost all of us had been sick over and over, though Tarn seemed to be holding up better than I was. At night we anchored in calm bays, under cliffs. The voice of the waves falling on the shore came again and again, as endless as the rocking of the brakka.
“Aro!” yelled the man again angrily and once again he raised his stick to hit me, but this time the Big Man, the one with the red beard, stepped between the man and me, standing on one of the wooden benches, and put up his hand to ward off the blow. He glared at the stick-man and said nothing. Stick- man glared back, but lowered his cudgel; no point in fighting Big Man over a boy.
I looked over at Tarn, who gave me a puzzled look. We couldn’t understand much of the language of these sea-people yet, though there were some words in common. We could guess at which ones meant row, faster, stop. They called their drink bir, as we did, and the red drink vanna. The slavers often laughed and argued among themselves. They also raped the women on the back deck at night, taking turns with the prettiest ones. But even the oldest and youngest ones had the same misery. Tarn and I and the other boys could only hang our heads as we listened to their cries of anguish and wish the bad men death. We called out silently to Awa and spat on ourselves to ward off the evil, and cursed the men under our breath, but it didn’t do any good. I began to wonder if Awa didn’t come to the sea. There must be other gods and goddesses here, ones we didn’t know. Mata used to say Awa was everywhere, but I doubted it was so. In fact, I wondered if Awa was anywhere. How could she let Mata be killed and us taken? What do did we ever do wrong to Awa? Nothing I could see. I pushed my intiation with Belit from my mind. If I had been at the house I would have been killed along with Mata. In my mind I saw myself smashing Awa down into little pieces of rock, but then thought better of it and offered a prayer. I hoped she hadn’t been watching my mind. Mata always said Awa could kill you if she wanted to. It was best to be afraid of the gods.
Tarn and I could not talk, because the slavers would beat us if we did, so we communicated with our eyes. He had recovered from his early fright. One can even share a joke with just the eyes, and also one can warn another. I spent a lot of time studying the brakka: the way the wood was fitted together, the pitch between the planks, the ropes that controlled the sail, the steering sweep in the back. I was learning that Awa had given the gift of understanding how things work. Before too long I could see how the ship was sailed. After a while, I could sense changes in the sea and sky, feel the wind move in a new direction, notice the meeting places of currents clashing up in standing waves. The sea was a new place and exciting, but the stars at night were the same stars as at home, and made me wish my fate had been different and had never taken me from the high mountains.
We were heading ever towards hotter lands. The mountains became brown; the hot winds blew over us from the south like fire as we worked the oars. They only fed us enough to stay alive, gave us just enough water to keep us rowing. Big Man sometimes took pity on us and poured buckets of sea water over our heads, which felt cool for moment, but left us with raspy, dry skin and salt dripping in our eyes as we sweated. The brakka leaked plenty, so our feet were wet and cool, though my skin began to rot around my toes and I spent a lot of energy in keeping them above the bilge.
After almost two hands of days, we came around a long point and saw what I now know was a town, though I thought it must be the home of the gods themselves at the time. There must have been hundreds of houses. I couldn’t conceive how many people there were there. The houses were white, like the town we had left from, but here they seemed taller, with many doors and windows in them. Our houses in the mountains had been round, with no windows, or only small holes to let the smoke of the hearth out. This city covered a low hill that jutted out from the main shore. The harbor lay partly behind it, protected from the waves and wind. On the hills further inland I could see trees growing in ordered lines. I had never seen that, and I stared in wonder at the scene before us. Many boats and brakkas floated in the harbor, and there were docks all along the shore, and a long curving beach of nearly white sand. As we rowed into the harbor, I saw that on top of the hill-city there stood the largest building I had ever seen. It had many tall pillars like tree-trunks and a thick, flat, red roof.
“Itak!” yelled one of the men. “Itak!” They clapped their hands and laughed.
But thought the slavers rejoiced, my heart sank, and dread showed on the faces of all of us at the oars. Tarn looked at me with panic in his eyes. What would become of us now?

We were bound together once again as before, hand to foot, one to the next. We were now ten and seven: three women had died: Lulla by the arrow and the other two, Lit and Amat, had been killed by the men after they had been raped. There had been tense bickering among the slavers over these deaths for a few minutes. A dead slave is worth nothing. But they were just tossed off the deck into the dark sea like waste.
The brakka slid in and was tied at a long dock, one of many that stuck out from the shore. Other boats were tied up or anchored. All along the beach there were small jana and brakka up on the sands or floating just in shallow water. Some had sails, some just oars. I looked at them and made a wish and prayer to Awa that Tran and I would be able to steal a boat and make our way to freedom. A long line of houses faced the curving bay. In front of the houses stood and walked so many people; it hurt my mind. There were piles of stuffs: cloth, wood, things that I knew not by name. The Master and the others dragged us from the brakka onto the dock and ordered us to sit. We collapsed, like dogs after a mountain crossing. The dock seemed to still move like the waves and I felt myself getting sick, but used my mind to ward off the act of throwing up. Tarn and I exchanged looks. Men had gathered on the dock to see the new slaves. The master talked with them: one, then the other. They nodded and argued. Finally, they made us rise and led us off along the shore.
Beyond the first line of houses, there was an open space surrounded by many houses and stalls. The number of people was too much to understand. They passed by, short, dark men, tall men with blue eyes, men wearing skins as we did, men and women wearing long cloths of all colors wrapped around their bodies. Some had hats of straw, some covered their faces with cloaks, and some wrapped cloth in a circle around their heads. Handfuls sat dully with their backs against the walls of the white houses while others walked by quickly, intent on whatever they were doing. There were piles of food stuffs in the open space. I realized it was a barter place. Red fruits, grapes, rabbits, fish of all colors and sizes, and strange dark sea creatures with long coiled legs covered in circles hung from stings off poles. There were women everywhere, most with their faces covered with dark cloth, but some with long hair and shiny objects in their tresses and small blue stones and the clear stone that’s yellow, that sometime has bees trapped inside it like magic, hanging from their ears. One young dark-eyed beauty smiled at me. She reminded me of Belit. I felt her gaze in my manhood.
As we passed through the place, I caught the eye of one older, worn-out man sitting in the dirt, who wore skins in the manner of our mountain- folk. He looked at me hard with his deep-set eyes. A scar ran across one side of his face. He stood up slowly, as if it hurt him to stand, and made his way through the throng of people. As he passed me, I felt a tug on my waistband. I didn’t know what had happened. I looked back the man. He was melting back into the crowd. He held up one finger to his lips and then disappeared around a corner.
We were taken to a mud and stone wall next to a bir shop and made to sit with goats and pigs and other animals in a rough corner pen made of bales of hay and other stuffs. We were nothing more than animals to these men. The sun was setting and it was clear that they were going to get drunk. They set two of their number on us as guards, though they also drank too and were soon glaze-eyed. There were women at the place, who drank with the men. It didn’t take too much thinking to see what was going on. At dusk, the marketplace emptied of daytime people. But the ones who stayed were there for bir and vanna and for animal concerns. The slavers coupled with the vanna-women right in the corners of the streets, grunting like swine.
We drew together out of fear, for around the bir shop in the plaza there were many rough men, all very drunk and getting drunker. Fights kept breaking out. Not long after dark, one man was killed by two others. His body lay in the dust, blood from a neck slash pooling under him, his dead eyes lit by the torches outside the bir shop. Tarn managed to get near me and we whispered.
“We must get free!”
“I know, this isn’t good.” I said quietly. But we were bound, and the men, while drunk, were still outside the tavern, milling about.
Wait, I felt something at my side. I remembered the man in the market tugging at my waistband. I felt with my free hand. It was a hard object, stuck in the folds of my long shirt. I drew it out. It was a flint blade, a finger- length long. A gift from Awa! I signaled Tarn to silence. I worked the sharp flint on my wrist cord and cut it, and then freed my ankle. I crept to Tarn and did the same for him. The others were sleeping. Should I cut them free? I wanted to, but I knew we would have no chance of escape as a group. Tarn and I might be able to get past the guards once they passed out from drink.
As Tarn and I crouched in the darkness, unsure of what to do next, one of the guards got up and stumbled off into the shop, from which came loud shouts and laughter. The other guard seemed to be dozing. I nodded my head in his direction. Tarn saw him, too. Tarn and I crept slowly to the edge of the bales. A pig snorted loudly as it was inconvenienced by our passing, but we crawled between the bales and were free. I knew where the beach was, just past the row of houses beyond the shop. Not a hundred lengths.
Just as we began to sneak away, there stood in front of us the unmistakable shadow of the Big Man. He looked at us stupidly. He was plainly very drunk. He swayed on his huge legs. I could see sweat dripping down his face and arms in the torchlight.
“Warto gah! Where you go, my rabbits?” He spat. He grabbed at Tarn and caught him by the hair with his big hand. At the same time, he pulled down his pants with his other hand. I held the flint tight in my hand, jumped right at him, and swiped at his manhood. I got lucky. Blood spurted out all over my arm, but I didn’t drop the flint.
The big man let out a horrible yell, loosed his hold on Tarn, and tried to spin around and grab me. He looked down at the dark blood pouring down his leg.
“Run!” I yelled.
We ran across the deserted marketplace. There no light, but away from the shop, the stars were enough. I heard the dead-raising roaring curses of the Big Man and the voices of others shouting and laughing. But in a moment we were on the beach. I strained to see the shape of a boat with a sail. There was one just offshore. We waded out to our waists and clambered onboard. I could hear shouting now. They were coming!
The anchor! “I hissed at Tarn. I found an oar and began pushing the boat away from the beach, digging the oar into the sandy bottom. The jana slid away across the water until the oar didn’t touch the bottom. I almost lost my grip on the long oar, but held on.
“Quick! I’ll row. Use the steering sweep, Not too much- just straight out!” I whispered.
I slipped the oars into the wooden locks. I pulled with my strong slave muscles. I was suddenly glad I had pulled an oar before! Back on the waterfront, men were stumbling around with torches. Lucky for us, Awa’s wind was blowing from the land, behind us. I couldn’t see any boats following. Slowly we made our way out into the open water. I kept rowing until I thought my arms would fall off. Then Tarn and I switched and he pulled as I steered our boat away around to the south beyond the point and the few flickering lights of the hill-top city. In the large, pillared building on the top, a flame burned. I watched it slowly fade in the distance over my shoulder until we were alone on the sea in the darkness, free at last, at least for now.













4

Tarn and I kept rowing most of the night. There was no wind at dawn, so we angled in to the rocky shoreline and found a small cove backed with high cliffs. We pulled our boat up on the shore and slept. We woke later; clouds were building up from the north, and the wind was blowing steadily. We rowed out and set the sail and were soon going fast along the coast. It felt good to put some distance between us and the city. I had no idea whether the slavers would bother looking for us, but hoped they wouldn’t. The boat owner was probably more upset about losing his jana than the bad men would be about losing two boys. We laughed about Big Man getting his manhood sliced.
“The gods guided your hand!” grinned Tarn.
“Maybe they were just saving you for themselves!” I laughed back, though at once we both realized that this thought was a bad idea. It could bring the wrath of the gods on Tran and on me. I saw a cloud of fear cross Tarn’s face.
“I just got lucky.” I said quietly, “thank Awa. We both spat on ourselves for luck. We needed to put this all behind us.
As it began to get dark, we put in again. The clouds and wind had become heavier, and besides, we were hungry. There were large nets and long ropes as well, in the boat. We found a good spot beyond some big rocks, where the waves were spent themselves before reaching the shore. There weren’t high cliffs to protect us from people who might live along the shoreline though. We just had to take a chance.
We tried throwing the nets between the rock and caught a few small spider-like creatures I later learned were called crabs, which were very funny creatures to watch and awful to eat without a fire. Then we found a spot where we could stand above a deeper pool and lowered the net down with ropes. This time we caught three fish as big as our forearms. We had no way to make a fire, so we cut them up with the flint blade. The meat was fresh and tasty.
We talked about what to do next. I knew that if we headed back up the coastline on land, we would eventually come to our lands again. It would be dangerous passing through so many places of strange peoples. Also, we had nothing really to go back to. Our village had been burned. Mata was dead. We didn’t know what had happened to Belit. I said nothing of my encounter with her to Tarn. He looked sad, and I guess I was, too. But I also wanted to see what was ahead of us, down the coast. We decided to sail again in the morning.
The north wind was still blowing in the morning. The clouds were thick and low. We set out and soon were flying along, racing the waves. It was exciting; we laughed and shouted to each other to steer or loose or tighten the ropes that held the sail. But the clouds were getting darker. The coast was nothing but tall cliffs here, with no coves that we could see. The waves began to crest a little and get bigger. I was working hard to keep the boat going straight on them. They started to break over us. The air got suddenly colder and the wind began to sig through the rigging lines. Tarn looked scared. My careless remark about the gods hung in my heart. The swells grew higher and higher. I tried to get closer to the cliffs, looking for anyplace we could land, but the waves crashed in great, thundering power against the rocks. It started to rain, blowing across us and making it hard to see.
It looked as if ahead there was a point sticking out. I was afraid we wouldn’t clear it, but I hoped there would be calmer waters beyond. I couldn’t turn the boat much for fear that we’d be rolled over if we got sideways to the steep swells. Tarn was bailing out water with the boat’s bucket, but far more was coming in then he could bail. The boat was becoming heavy and unresponsive to the steering sweep. The point drew quickly closer. The waves were towering up as they smashed into the rocks. We slid up the face of each breaker and then back down the other side. A big wave would swamp us. Neither of us had ever swum further than across the small pools of the Voda back home.
I could see that unless I could turn further to the right, we would be thrown upon the rocks, so I dug the steering sweep into the cold, gray water and hung on as hard as I could, praying to Awa. Save us! Save us! I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a huge wave rising up. It was sucking the water off the rocks right in front of us. The boat rose on the face of the giant and turned suddenly sideways and rolled. I looked up and saw the wave falling down on us. I heard Tarn cry out, “Stek!”
I was thrown into black, churning water, tumbled like a stone in an avalanche. I know I came up and took a breath at one point, and then was sucked back under. That’s all I remember.

“He’s alive”
I heard a girl’s voice. It was close by my head.
“Then let’s see if he can be awakened. The animals have to be taken in.”
A man’s voice. He didn’t sound unkind. Where was I? At once it hit me. Tarn! I struggled to get up, but felt greatly sick. I got to my knees and threw up, and threw up again. I looked up.
A short, but strong-looking man, dressed in a long shirt and leggings, wearing a woolen cap, stood looking down at me. Next to him was a young girl, maybe just older than me. She had black hair and eyes. She wore a cloak, but her hair was uncovered. The wind blew through it. The sky was stormy.
“Where’s Tarn?” I blurted out. “My friend!” I stood up. I had my shirt on, but nothing else. I turned to look at the sea. The giant waves rolled by. I was on the far side of the point, on a sandy beach beneath low cliffs. Some sheep were huddled halfway up the cliffs, tails to the wind and rain.
“We don’t see your friend, I fear.” I realized that I understood the words the man was saying. His language was almost the same as mine, though it sounded strange. Tarn was gone. I ran in panic back to the rocks at the point. There was no sign of the boat, no sign of Tarn. I had lost my last connection with home.
“You must come, boy, “The Man said.”U- Dan has taken your friend.”
I fell to my knees on the sand. I had cursed him. The gods had wanted him for themselves after all. If I hadn’t spoken, he would still be here.
“I should be dead, not Tarn!” I cried.
“The gods have something else in mind for you, boy. No one could have survived rounding that point without their favor.”
The kind man reached out and helped me to my feet. The two of them clucked and prodded the sheep away from the stormy shore and up a path that led up into the hills. I looked back at the shore. The eaves swept by relentlessly. Tarn was gone.

I had nowhere to go now, and no one to go there with. Since they treated me kindly, and then for another reason, I stayed with Pelop and his daughter Pelopa for the next two years. I tended sheep, protecting them from wulfen in the hills and driving them in for shearing. Pelop had chickens and pigs as well. Once in a while we slaughtered one for our cooking pot. There was a garden and a small grove of trees that grew a green fruit called olives, the like of which I had never tasted. It was complicated to soak and treat the olives so you could even eat them, but when the process was done they were tasty, and we used the oil from them for cooking, for lamplight, and for easing sore muscles. Here, as at home, a braid of skorda, or garlic, was hung above the door to keep away evil spirits and the vaskania, as they called the evil eye. Their language was similar to my own, though many words were different and the way Pelop and his daughter pronounced the ones I did know sounded strange at first. There was a small town at a day’s walk. I avoided it for fear of the slavers and pirates who sailed this coastline of rugged shores and rocky inlets. Pelop and Pelopa said there were witches and shape-changers. They also feared the kailkatza, little men or demons who came out at night to cause problems for people. Every big stone or old tree was bewitched; every path a danger if a hare or cat crossed it.
I never did find Tarn’s body, though for some time there were pieces of the jana on the rocks. Poor Tarn; he was a good friend. But the gods are jealous, they say, and won’t let you keep anything you value more than them. But I was beginning to feel that the gods would take from even those who did put them first. Pelop called the sea-god U-Dan or sometimes Pozdeon.
Pelop was a simple enough man. His wisdom he guarded like his good vanna. He worked at his sheep and land and provided for Pelopa. His wife had died years before. “From a curse,” He said. He bartered the wool in bales at the town for fish and wares. We didn’t need much, because we hunted and made and grew almost everything we needed, as was the way of people. My prowess with the bow made our stew-pot much better, Pelop said. The land was rich with game and deer. Forests came down from the mountains nearly to the sea. Clear streams tumbled in waterfalls from gaps I the rocky heights. There were trutta. Pelop taught me to fish and gather crabs and shellfish along the shore. I had never known such a good life.
Pelopa and I were shy at first, but nature has a way with young things, and we soon discovered each other, first with talk, later with our natural impulses.
“I’m faster than you are, “she laughed, and she took off down the rocky hill toward the sea. I chased after her, determined that she would not beat me. We were children, playing a game. She disappeared and I paused, unsure if she was up to some trick. Suddenly, she bolted from behind a big rock, her dark eyes flashing in laughter. I yelled at her, calling her a sheep, but I was hard pressed to catch up to her before she reached the thicket of scrub trees above the sea-cliff. I entered the wood stealthily, creeping forward like a nema-cat. Then she lunged out from her hiding place and grabbed me by the waist, throwing me over. I grappled with her and we rolled, holding on to each other until the game became kisses and passion and we were spent. The wind blew through the little trees. I could smell the salt of the sea on our skin. She looked at me sweetly.
“I caught you, “she whispered.
“No, I caught you.” I laughed. But she was right, she did catch me.
I had never known this feeling. I didn’t know what to name it. We held each other until we knew Pelop would be looking for us, and then walked above the sea-cliffs back to the house on the hill. Pelop was there with the sheep. He had a pot of stew bubbling. It soon grew dark and the moon began to rise above the mountains. A wulfen howled far away up in the crags.
“Wulfen, “said Pelop as he stirred the coals with a stick, “was once a god, an handsome fellow. He fell in love with Awa’s sister, Kula, the Goddess of Dreams. Though he was in love with her, he was jealous of Kula’s night voice, which was sad, terrifying, and beautiful all at once. He begged Awa to give it to him, so that he could sing things to sleep. Awa said Wulfen could have anything he wanted, said Awa, except Kula’s song. Poor Wulfen. This made him crazy with desire for her song, so he stole it. When Awa found out she changed him into a slinking beast and threw him from the home of the gods. She said, “You will have Kula’s song forever, and forever you will wander the hills singing it.”
I carried my bow and sling with me in the hills. Wulfen would have my arrow if he came too close. I had already seen enough to know that there were some real things to fear, but the worst fear was in your mind.

In the second year, Pelopa began to show with child. Pelop wasn’t angry. He seemed glad. I was like a good son to him. I think he saw that I would provide for him as he grew old. The little house above the sea would hear the small voice of the new child. U-Dan’s wind blew gently through the olive trees. It wasn’t an unhappy place at all.
Pelop and Pelopa worshipped Awa in the same ways we had in the mountains. Our people were related, it seemed. After all, the brown Mountains beyond the coastal hills were just a southern reach of the high snow mountains. Pelop said he had been two moon’s journey further down the coast, to where the language changed, but even there they still worshipped Awa above all others, though they had other names for her. Here there was also U-Dan of the Sea, Dyaus the Thunderer, and a host of other gods and goddesses. Pelop would tell tales of the gods and heroes at night, around the fire. He had a good way with stories. I felt as if I was in the time of giants and one-eyed men and goddesses who became snakes. For Pelop, this was the world as he lived it. He made offerings every time he left to walk the hills with the sheep, every time he went to the sea to fish. I made the offering s as well, but I noticed that it didn’t make that much difference when I failed to make the sacrifices because of my youthful desire to go more quickly to my destinations. Or so I thought.
I built another room of stones and turf for Pelopa and the baby and me. Around our three-room house were several olive trees. A small stream was just down the hill. The sea stretched out in the distance, the mountains rose behind. Below the house in a fold along the stream we grew barley and grapes. Pelop showed me how to brew bir and vanna, which I came to enjoy.
I grew taller and stronger. I was in my ten and six year now. My beard was noticeable, though Pelop laughed at it, because my hair color was not black like his, but a lighter shade of brown. Pelopa made me fine clothes of wool and skins. I carved bows from hard wood I got in the mountains. I made flint-tipped arrows and knives of antler with flint inserts. I used my sling to hurl rocks at varmints that came near the sheep, and to take hares and birds for our pot. Sometimes I shot a hart. Killed wulfen were left for the Nightwind to scavenge.
In the fall, Pelopa gave birth to a little girl, which secretly disappointed me, as like any man I wanted a son, but I had nothing but fine words for her. Pelopa named the girl Mata, which did please me.
As the seasons passed I grew less fearful of the town and possibility that the Big Man with his little manhood and the others would find me, though traders were frequently there in town. Itak was only five days journey to the north. Even Pelop traveled there once or twice a year to buy copper blades and trinkets. He also liked to get away for serious vanna drinking sometimes. I didn’t grudge him that. In the local town, called Mirat, there was a temple to Awa on a hill above the center. There were only fifty houses in the village, and the temple was small, but it had a priestess. Her name was Alta. She reminded me of Belit. She was older, but still had her beauty. Like Belit, she was without fear, and therefore she was feared and respected. Simple-minded villagers made sure to give her offerings against the evil eye and other sicknesses. I knew that men lusted for her, because I did, though in secret. One day, when we were at market, we went to the temple, a square building held up four large posts made from great tree trunks, painted red. An oil lamp always burned in front of the carved stone offering bench. Alta took the offering of a jug of vanna and a young sheep. She ignored Pelop and Pelopa and the baby, which Pelopa kept swaddled, and gave me a long look that went right through me and made me a bit uncomfortable, as it caused my manhood to respond. I hoped Pelopa didn’t notice, though I am afraid she did. No one would talk badly of Alta, not even two people as close as Pelopa and I were. She couldn’t accuse a priestess of Awa of trying to seduce her man, could she? She would be afraid to for fear of the evil eye and other curses, especially on our child.
Alta did curse me. For it was about that time, as Pelopa was nursing little Mata and not laying with me, that I began to feel an urge to wander. I took the sheep up in the hills and stood on the ridge tops, gazing into the haze- shrouded south, along the mountains, down the sea. There were islands at the edge of vision on a clear day, and I wondered what lay beyond. But I still brought the sheep back, and farmed the barley and grapes and cucumbers. But I also found myself thinking of Alta: the way she looked at me. I wanted her, though I knew that was wrong.
Do the gods hate us, or do we bring our own ruin on ourselves? I grew slowly sullen and distant from sweet Pelopa. I stared out at the sea. Pelop could see this change.
“Why don’t you go into Mirat and get yourself some vanna with the young men?” he said one night as we sat, the two of us, by the fire.” We can tend the place for a couple of days. You can take our honey in and trade for something for Pelopa and little Mata.”
It was a deal. I could go and be wild and then make it good with presents on my return. Pelop went off two or the times a year all the way to Itak to do whatever he did. I knew it was drinking. I think it kept him from going crazy, ever tending to sheep. The women had their feasts of Awa, where no man was allowed to go near. It was only fair. I watched everything when he was gone. It was my turn.
The next morning I made a pretext to Pelopa about trading for a copper axe. She was sitting on a rock in the sun, singing a simple song and bouncing little Mata on her knee. She smiled at me in her usually easy way. It was fine.
As I walked down the trail, Pelop caught up to me and said quietly. “One thing.”
“Yes?”
“Be careful of the priestess. She’s a witch. Dangerous.”
He looked me in the eyes and then smiled, “and don’t get so drunk you end up with a sheep!”
“I’ll try not to.” I laughed.
I headed to town. Behind the folds in the hills, I couldn’t see the sea and the long brakka with the red sail that was coasting in from the north.






5

I was going to go and leave my honey pot with Akil the barterer and then visit with the villagers in the marketplace, for it was Ock’s day when all came to trade and talk. But I didn’t really want to go into town and see all those people right away, so I stopped above the trail on a hillock and slept for a few hours. When I woke, the sun was trending lower over the sea. I knew there would be maybe two hundred people in the town for Och’s day and night.
But when I drew near, I changed my mind suddenly, or maybe it wasn’t so sudden. Maybe I was planning it all the time. I stashed my honey jar under some roots and went behind the village to where the land fell off into a ravine. The back of Awa’s temple stood atop an outcropping of rocks overlooking the defile. A little trail wound up through tumbled stones bigger than a man to a small door at the back. I stood below pondering my next move. I told myself to turn and go around to the village square, to the people, to the young men drinking vanna and bir. But I found myself climbing up the trail.
I came to the door and she was there, sitting on a low stone bench just inside. She had been watching me from above, I realized. Alta said nothing, but beckoned me in. There was a room, simple, with a bed of straw covered in soft sheep skins. A house snake slithered away to its wall hole and drew itself through. She stood in front of me. She wore only a loose, dark red cloth around her waist. Her full breasts were bare. Her long, black hair framed her face. Her eyes pierced me like lightning arrows. She took my hand and placed it on her breast. At once I was enflamed. I offered no resistance.
She was unlike Pelopa, or even Belit. She did things with me that I had never guessed, with her mouth, her fingers. I was fully in the moment with her, her student, her sacrifice.
When it was done, she put her finger to her lips and led me to the door. Night had fallen. I went down the trail in the moonlight. I found my honey jar and walked around to the village. There was a fire in the marketplace and people, mostly men, sitting or standing. Two drummers played and an old man strummed a bazu and sang. Men danced, arms linked together, faces bright with drink. I brought the honey jar to Akil. There were big cups of bir being drunk and goatskin bladders of vanna as well. The old man sang lewd songs and songs about goddesses who ate young boys alive and songs of war and sad songs of the sea. Sea songs are always sad, because U-Dan falls in love with men and women and children and takes them to be with him in his depths. Tarn’s fate. The vanna soon made me cry for him. The old man sang the long tale of the one -eyed giant and clever King Odassu.
I drank much more than I should, for I also felt a deep pain from having gone to the Goddesses’ temple. The drink made me want to go back again, though I knew this would not be wise. So I danced and sang and drank more and more. The drink made me stupid and I remember reeling around, falling down over a log.
I woke slowly. Someone was prodding me in the ribs.
“Wake up, you fool.” A man’s voice hissed. “The Big Man has been here!” I bolted upright. There was a shape standing over me.
“Who are you? “I asked groggily. My head was pounding. But the shape was gone. I stumbled to my feet. Oh, the vanna! I was still drunk. The marketplace was empty, cold and dark. The stars were bright, but the first hint of light was outlining the mountains to the east. I panicked.
The Big Man! Where? I was confused. But I quickly thought: the gods have told me this. Pelopa! The witch has cursed us!
I ran across the open marketplace and found the road. I ran as fast as I could in the growing light. It was two hours walk to the house, but I would get there far faster at this speed. My heart raced with fear. The witch!
I knew as soon as I saw the house. I found Pelop face down in the door. Mata’s little body was inside. Pelopa was gone. I took my bow, which was in the new room, my arrows, my sling, my flint long knife, and a wulfen spear. I pulled Pelop inside next to my child. I took a burning ember from the last of the fire and set the thatch ablaze.
Then I ran back down the trail. Like a deer in full flight, but with the heart of a wulfen, I raced to the cove near the town. Too late. I saw the brakka clearing the point, sailing south. I yelled with all my fury, at them, at myself, at the gods, at Alta. My voice echoed from the cliffs, but was blown away by the sound of the sea, the screeling of gulls, and the dawn wind.
I turned back and made my way around the still sleeping village until I came to rocks behind the temple. I crept up through the stones until I got to the doorway. I stepped inside, my knife in my fist. She spun to face me. In two steps I was at her. She fell on the stone floor. I walked through her blood and took Awa from her perch above the offering bench and smashed her on the floor. The stone shattered. She can’t hurt me any worse than she has done, I thought: if she kills me, then, so what? She is no goddess worthy of the name.
I came out the front of the temple and descended to the village. The villagers still slept. From Akil’s stores I took vanna in skins, my honey jar, and three loaves of bread. Then I went back down to the cove and slid a jana into the waves and rowed out beyond the point. The brakka was gone. I raised the sail.
A curse on the gods! My destiny would be my own from now on. The jana skipped over the wave tops and I headed south. My anger was stronger than the curse of the goddess, or the power of U-Dan, or any god or witch. I would find Pelopa and have my revenge on the Big Man.















6

Perhaps I missed the brakka in a fog, or failed to find the right port in the bewildering maze of big and little islands that lay near and far from the coast. Maybe the Big Man and his minions had simply gone on past the islands to begin with. I had no way of knowing that. I frantically sailed from island to island, my heart rising and falling like the waves with the rounding of every point. Many of the islands were tall, like the tops of sunken mountains sticking out of the dark sea. Small houses and huts clung to nearly vertical cliff faces and terraces designed to catch the rain from squalls held tiny slivers of gardens high above the waves, perched like emerald bird’s nests. Some islands were bigger and had natural harbors with fair-sized fishing towns strung out on outcroppings above the blue waters. I landed at a distance when I could and stole up on each place of habitation, trying to see if the brakka lay at anchor in the clear waters of the countless coves, not wanting to be found out by my carelessness. I also stole food and drink from empty houses and from the marketplaces of ports I first determined were big enough and well visited enough to be safe for sea-travelers. I was caught in the act of spying and stealing several times and I was chased by local men and had to escape back to the jana and the safety of the open sea, or had to hide in caves or under bushes until the men had stopped searching for me. My body got cut up and bruised from the scrambles. As the weeks past I felt myself getting tougher and stronger from rowing and sailing as well. I was determined to find Pelopa if it took me forever. If she was dead, then I would have my revenge on the Big Man and her other captors. In my anger, I may have been losing my mind as well.
But as will happen with all such passions, my sharp sense of urgency slowly wore out, like a raging fire dying down to smoldering embers. A sense of drying bitterness seeped in and bit by bit replaced my hope that I would find Pelopa. Awa had taken everything from me again. I swore no more allegiance to the goddess. In the future I would outwardly give offerings if circumstances required, but my heart was cold to the Goddess. I had broken her image; I had killed her witch- priestess.
As I drifted on the waves at night, or slept on the sand in some lonely cove, I watched the stars above and wondered what they really were. They were said to be gods. But my solitude fueled my doubts. Maybe everything, the sky and the earth, people and their god tales, was just the way it was, and the gods, if there were such beings, didn’t bother to entwine their desires into the lives of ordinary people. People themselves were capable of cold, easy murder and shameless brutality’ even I was. There was no need for vengeful gods. But I had one unanswered question that kept coming back to me and made me feel that my mind might break down. Who was the man who had told me that the Big Man had been in Mirat? There was no one when I looked around after hearing the voice. I wondered if it had all been a dream. But if so, where did the dream come from? Then, there was also the man who had given me the flint knife when I was bound as a slave. The whole problem made my head reel, and I tried to put those thoughts away as much as I could. For I denied and turned from the gods, yet who had warned and aided me? Perhaps just other wanderers such as I was. I couldn’t say.
I kept searching for Pelopa, working ever further down the rock-bound islands and the endless coast. Finally I came to where the islands stopped and I was swept by north winds for days along high cliffs. I soon ran out of the last of my stolen bits of food and the only water I could drink was the dew that dripped from my ragged sail. Only luck saved me from being drowned by a big storm or a great swell, or perhaps the cruel gods were playing with me despite my turning away from them. The coast turned to the west and had a great many dangerous points. I struggled to keep the jana heading west, towards the setting sun. Then at last I passed a great, storm-lashed point and was blown again to the south.
The winds carried me across a long fetch of open sea, where the waves grew higher and longer between. Whitecaps and breakers were all around me, and I worked hard to keep the steering sweep and the sail matched to hold the jana pointed downwind. Despite my being in the middle of the wide ocean, the wind became hot and dry, and the sun burned like a pitiless fire. I was growing faint with hunger and thirst. At last a great island with a tall mountain at its center loomed up ahead. At first I thought it was a vision, but it grew steadily more real and my hopes began to rise. There was a strait between the mountainous mainland and the rugged island. The currents pulled me toward the strait, where the clashing waves made whirlpools, which sailors say to be the abodes of great, pitiless sea-snakes. Somehow I came through the strait under high waves and I made a ruinous landfall in the crashing surf of a rocky beach of the mainland. The jana broke apart as it was dashed on the rocks. I struggled ashore through the whitewater and climbed to a low dune thinly covered in saw grass. Across the wind-blown strait I could make out the white houses of a large town clustered on a point of the big island.
I had managed to hold onto my bow and quiver from the broken jana, but I had nothing else but a drinking skin with a little rain water in it. I looked around. A low plain of short hills and scrub -bush land lay eastwards towards the base of tall, bare mountains. I had a moment of longing for my pine-clad home with its plentiful game and clear, cold streams. I would be lucky to find vipers or stringy rabbits to kill and eat here. I set out with my bow.
I saw a line of low trees in the distance and made my way there. They were desert trees, with only handfuls of thorny, dull leaves. The stream along which they grew was dry, but here and there were tiny pools of barely drinkable water under the twisted roots. I filled my skin and drank. I looked for animal sign in the sandy ground and found the tracks of a wild pig and followed them downstream, back towards the coast. The tracks were fresh and I hoped to come in range for my arrows. I came up a low ridge. Not wanting to be seen by the boar, I crept towards the crest of the ridge on my belly, slowly drawing myself up to see the lay of the land ahead. What I saw made me instantly flatten myself as low as a lizard.
Just below, down the other side of the ridge, lay a long, curving beach. On the sand were drawn six large brakkas, sails furled, oars shipped. There were hundreds of men on the shore, lying under scrub trees or standing near the brakkas. The men were of a type I never seen before, short and dark, with curled black hair and beards. They wore various tunics of leather and some had hats made of something that glistened like bone in the sun. There were spears stacked in tripods near cooking fires, and a small herd of sheep was penned amongst the trees. I pondered who they might were. Not traders; they were surely a war party. I had never seen such a large group of warriors before. I had only seen small bands of slavers and other armed men in twos or threes, never two hundred or more of such men. I quickly decided to crawl back down and quit this place as fast as I could.
I slid back and turned. There was a spear point in my face. Two men loomed over me. I squinted up at them. The spearman was grinning. The other looked serious.
• “Tercho ba!” He barked at me.
My heart raced What did he mean?
“I was hunting a pig.” I stammered.
“No hunt,” he said, in my language, though it sounded funny. “No hunt. Spy for Karfu’.” He pointed across the strait to the white city on the island.” Karfu’,” he spat. The spearman had stopped grinning. He looked bored, like he’d just like to run me through and take my bow and sling and be done with it.
The speaker, who was taller than the spearman, with a short black beard and heavy eyebrows, kicked me in the side.
“Up! get!” He ordered. I got to my feet.
“We take you to Adilos”. Spearman prodded me with the butt end of his spear and made me walk ahead of them down the embankment to where the brakkas were drawn up and the cooking fires burned. I could smell meat burning. I was hungry in spite of my fear. Let me eat before I die, I thought. A crowd of rough- looking fighters gathered around as we walked into the encampment, laughing and making crude jokes at my expense. I could understand about half of what they were saying. “A new whore for us!” “You’ll get thirds, drunken fool”. Their tongue was close to mine, but with other words mixed in. They were mostly strong-looking men, with ox-skin armor and boar-hide greaves on their legs. Many carried short swords and copper-headed axes. A few were better dressed and wore helmets of boar’s tusks bound together by cordage. Many were young men, no older than my six and ten summers. But the leaders, and there seemed to be a group of them, were older, maybe in their twenties. The camp was filthy. There was offal lying about on the bedding and broken vanna jugs and beaker cups.
They pushed me down the beach to where a group of men was sitting in the shade of a thorn-covered tree. The speaker kicked me from behind on the back of my knees and I fell on the sand, though I caught myself before falling on my face. I looked at the man in front of me. He was older than me, though still young. At once I saw that his eyes were strikingly grey. He was as handsome as some of the others were not. His leather tunic was tooled and padded. He wore a ring of cypros on his wrist and a long, thin bone was tied in his curly black hair.
“A trach, Adilos.” Said the speaker. “He was on the ridge watching us.”
“Trach?” said the man. He looked at me, sizing me up. He wasn’t a big man. He was thin and wiry, like me. “Looks like a young girl!” he flashed a smile, and the others laughed.
“What are you? “He asked, sneering and grinning.” Do you spy for Karfu’”?”
I didn’t know what to answer, so I said nothing.
“Can you talk? Can you understand us?” he demanded.
“I can talk.” I said.
“The trach talks!” he said loudly. Once again, the others laughed. “Tell me, trach, before I let my men have their way with you, what were you doing watching us?”
I didn’t have an answer other than the truth.” I’m hungry. I was hunting a pig. I saw its tracks coming this way.”
The man nodded at one of his men, who turned away and then returned with a bloody bone with only scraps of charred meat left at the ends. The leader pointed at the ground and the man threw the bone into the sand in front of me.
“There’s your pig. Eat!”
Despite their rude laughter, I reached down and grabbed the bone and sucked on one end. I hadn’t eaten for four days. The man raised one eyebrow.
“I believe this young girl is hungry, that’s for certain. Have you got a name, trach?”
I spat out some uneatable bit of gristle. For some reason I heard myself saying, “Pelop”.
“Where do you come from, Pelop the hungry?” The man was relaxed, but he fingered his copper knife with his right hand.
“The wind blew me across the open water.” I motioned with my head towards the strait.” I don’t know where I am.”
The man, who was plainly Adilos, reached back with his left arm and took hold of a staff that was leaning against the scrub tree. He swiftly pulled himself to his feet, like a deer standing. I put down the bone and slowly stood up. I was about one length of a man in front of him. The others drew back a little, forming a circle. Adilos grinned at me.
“Can you fight, Pelop the Hungry?” He suddenly feinted with the staff. I flinched. The men laughed.
Adilos began to circle to his right, playing with the staff in his hands. I mirrored him. I knew I had no chance of escape. If he wanted me to die, I would die. One of the men leaned on a spear. He was a length to my right. I darted my hand down into the sand and threw a handful in the man’s face and grabbed his spear as he put his hands up. Some of the men clapped and shouted. Some tightened their hands on their weapons. Adilos grinned even wider and held up one hand to stay them from killing me.
“Pelop the trickster! Well done, little sea-gypsy! “
He swung his staff around swiftly and tried to hit my knee, then reversed and jabbed the other end at my face. I jumped up and parried the staff with the butt-end of the spear. He came again, knocking the spear almost out of my hands, but I held on and hit back as hard as I could. My spear broke in the middle and I was left with the butt, which now had a jagged tip. He swung the staff again, cracking me below my elbow. I grimaced and drew my hand back in spite of myself and I lost what remained of the spear. It skittered away across the sand.
Adilos stood tall and tossed his staff to one of the men. He reached to his belt and drew out his fine copper knife. He calmly handed it to the same man. Then he advanced on me, his arms hanging loosely. I bent forward and matched his footwork. But he sprang at me and caught me with an elbow to the ribs and then a quick punch to my face. I staggered back, blood pouring from my mouth and nose. I threw myself at him, trying to grapple with him, but he slipped my attack and hit me on the side of my head. I fell and rolled in the sand. I was stunned by the force of the blow. I tried to get up. The world spun. Somehow I got up again and ran at him wildly. I grabbed him around the waist and he fell down, but now he was laughing. I was exhausted, dizzy with lack of food, done in. He pushed me off and stood up. I was down. He reached out with his right hand.
“Get up, Pelop the sea-gypsy.” He said. I looked at him. He was proud, but not evil, I thought. “Wash yourself off in the sea and come and eat. You can fight for us.”
I took his offered hand and he pulled me to my feet. I stumbled past the men, one of whom clapped me on the back. I made it to the water and fell in. The coolness revived me. I washed the blood from my face. I had a couple of good scratches, but otherwise I was unharmed. I came back up the beach before Adilos, who was once again sitting in the shade. He motioned me to sit down.
“Well, you can’t fight with a spear or your fists!” He laughed,” What can you do?”
“I can shoot a bow.”
“Show me.” He said.
Speaker brought my bow and quiver. Adilos squinted down the beach. “Hit the prow on the last ship. Stick it.”
I stood and looked. It was about thirty man lengths, or a hundred and eighty foot lengths. The prow was a curving upright about a foot and half wide. It was a difficult but not impossible shot. I had made that good of a shot before, but I could easily miss it, too. I nocked an arrow and gauged the distance, felt the breeze – not too much wind. I raised the bow high as I drew the arrow back, the curving wood making little groaning sounds with the strain. It was a heavy bow, very strong. I lowered it until I had the range. Then, trusting to my eye and instincts, I let the arrow fly. It arched slightly as it sped down the beach toward the brakka. By great luck, it stuck in the upright, though a little lower than I thought I had aimed. A handful of men cheered the shot with appreciation.
Adilos, who had stood too, put his hand on my shoulder and said, in a not unfriendly voice, “I think you have a new name, sea-gypsy: Pelop the Archer.”

I put my hand over the side of the brakka and washed the blood of the sacrifice to Are’the Striker, the God of War, off my hand and arm. The oars dipped and the rowers strained. The old blind seer had slit the throat of the goat and run his knife under its belly, pulling out and feeling the entrails even as the animal still kicked and jerked. The seer mumbled in some strange language and finally said,” There will be victory… and death.”
“To Victory!” Shouted the warriors assembled on the beach in their battle gear. In the dancing light of the fires they shone like red ants. They clashed spear against shields and raised their fists. No one had shouted “to Death”.
The white walls of Karfu’ dimly showed in the predawn light as the ships slid into the cove. Though we had sworn a strict vow of silence until the fighting started, the sounds of oars being shipped, hulls grinding into the beach, the clatter of weapons, and splashes of men jumping into the water was undeniable. There were forty or more fighters in each brakka, so well over two hundred warriors followed Adilos up from the water’s edge to the town on the heights above. There was a shout or two from the houses, which quickly became a clamor of alarm. A young boy named Lukos, shorter and scrawnier than me, had been at my elbow since before we shipped out across the strait in the mid night.
“Will we be alright? “He had asked nervously as we rowed in the darkness on the gentle swell. The sea-water dripped down the oars when we raised them forward to set our stroke.
“Yes, if we don’t get a Karfu’ arrow in our throats!” I laughed.
What was the point? We had no choice. We were following Adilos to war with Karfu’. I had no objection. Pelopa was gone. I was far from a home I didn’t want to return to. Why not war? Adilos was a good leader, brave and smart, it seemed. Lukos and I were to stay back, anyway, with our bows, and guard the brakkas, along with the other boys. It seemed to me that many of the warriors weren’t much older than I was. But I was new. I wanted to see how it was done. I wanted to see what took place. I couldn’t fully understand why Adilos was attacking Karfu’. It was over some slight to his town of Hedra back across the strait, near the bare mountains. The King of Karfu’ had taken his sister or she had run away with him.


Adilos, standing on a shore-rock, his bearded face silhouetted by the dawn, raised his fist and yelled, “Dyaus and Are’!”
A roar from two hundred throats went up and our warriors charged up the slope into the town. Adilos ran first. He waved a long sword of metal, the like of which I hadn’t seen before. It was tin -copper, bronze: harder than copper. I had seen knives of it, but never a sword. He wore his boar’s teeth helmet and a double layered ox-hide shield. He ran on bare feet, as did we all. His manhood hung free, as was the custom for all fighters, but his chest was protected by a breastplate of hide.
The first men reached the houses. Scattered Karfu’ans emerged from their doorways, swinging clubs and short swords. A few surprised people, just woken from their sleep by the shouts of our fighters, threw rocks and crockery from the rooftops. Animals stampeded, trying to get away; pigs and chickens ran underfoot, dogs howled and cringed in the corners where they were trapped. One of our men grabbed a torch and soon thatch and wood was blazing here and there, and amidst the thick smoke and roaring flames the cries and shouts of the dying and the killers was like hundreds of wulfen howling and as brittle as hundreds of crows scolding. I could hear cries of fear and the rallying shouts of the Karfu’an fighters. There was dull clatters of stones as walls collapsed in dusty heaps. Our warriors ran in groups up the narrow alleys between the houses, killing and looting and burning. I saw women and men and even children falling from cruel blows. Warriors came back to the brakka carrying young girls. They dragged them by their hair and bound them, and threw them into the brakkas. There was blood on everyone. Women and children were screaming; death screams, screams of hatred and despair, and cries for mercy. But it was not an hour for mercy.
Soon much of Karfu’, which must have had at least two thousand people in it, was burning in the light of the breaking day. A column of dark smoke rose in the air like the cloud of a smoking thunder- mountain. People seeking refuge ran from the alleys out into the fields. Some were cut down by archers. The commander of my brakka, Kurgan, a lout with arms the size of legs, shouted at me to shoot at the refugees. I saw one figure running through a small field on the slope above the brakka carrying something and I took dead aim. I was about to release my arrow when I realized it was a woman carrying a baby. I changed my angle and shot the arrow pointlessly up into the smoky ruins of Karfu’.
It was now two hours past dawn, and our men were falling back to the brakkas, weighted down with loot and slaves. Adilos came out last, still shouting at the defenders of the citadel and brandishing his sword. His right-hand man, Orestus, had a woman slung over his broad shoulder. She was clawing at him, trying to escape, but he was far too strong for her. He grinned and made his way to the brakka. Then there was a loud cry from the main street of the town. Adilos looked back to see a big group of Karfu’ans coming out together, armed with spears, bows, pitchforks, sticks, and slings. These were the fighting men of the town, awake and armed. They were coming out to take care of us.
They had us seriously outnumbered. Our whole plan had been based on surprise. Now we’d have to fight a hero’s battle to determine the winner, or try to flee with our booty in the brakkas. But there wasn’t going to be time to do that before they fell on us. They came down the slope below the houses towards the beach. Two of the brakkas were pushed out into the water, but the other four were stuck on the sand, for the tide was falling, and our men had no choice but to turn and face the warriors of Karfu’.
Then I saw him, their leader: a foot taller than the rest, his red beard already stained darker with blood. The Big Man. There could be no mistake. He was striding at the head of the Karfu’ans, carrying a long war-club. On his head he wore a ram’s skull fashioned into a helmet. Its long curving horns only made his huge size that much more formidable.
Orestus dumped the girl on the beach. Adilos stepped out and pointed his word at her neck and shouted, “If you want her, come and get her. She has been spoiled by you scum. She is now worth nothing to the Adilonai! Still she is my sister, and you owe me for her honor. You owe me your filthy blood, pirate!”
“I will take her!” yelled the Big Man in his deep voice. He sounded like he meant it. Men drew back in spite of their battle lust. The Big Man came forward steadily, as if he was walking down to pick up a bucket or a jug of vanna. Adilos stepped up between the Big Man and the girl.
“Oh, you will challenge the Big Man?” said the hulking giant. He spat with contempt at the feet of Adilos.” Then you will die.”
All the fighters on both sides stopped and watched. This was the Hero’s Battle. On its outcome the day would turn.
Adilos held his sword in his right hand and dragged a piece of sea-net in his left. The Big Man swung his club loosely, a grin breaking slowly across his face. The two circled each other, feinting and jabbing, but not making much contact. Adilos was crouched down to make a smaller target for the Big Man, who made a big one. The heat of the day was rising and the sweaty fighters moved in the shimmering heat waves so that almost looked like they were floating above the sand. The girl moaned and lay dazed between them. Suddenly, the Big Man took a huge step and slammed his club on the girl’s head, caving it in. Blood and bones splattered up on both the big man and Adilos, who stood stock still for a moment, looking at the dead body of his sister.
That stunned moment was all the Big Man needed. He jumped across her body and hit Adilos in the head with a full swing of his club. Adilos’ head twisted sideways and he fell, his boar’s teeth helmet shattering into shiny little pieces that flew through the air, and he put not even a hand out to arrest his fall. The Big Man stood tall, arched his back backwards and let out a long, loud war- whoop. He pulled off his rams-head helmet and held it up above his head. Then he turned to our warriors, who had begun backing down toward the ships.
But I had moved up to the front rank of our men. I now stepped out and shouted at the Big Man,
“Where is my woman? You took her from Mirat.”
The Big Man squinted at me. He was acting as if he might not remember her. Then he smiled most foully and said, “Yes, from Mirat. The pretty one with the baby? A present from the priestess. Her skin was soft. She squealed like a little pig when we had her!” He laughed. His men rattled their shields with their spears and laughed and shouted, “Kill him! Death to the Adilonai!”
“Well you didn’t have her, because I cut your cock off!” I yelled. Silence fell for moment, then a ripple of murmurs of surprise. The Big Man stared at me, turning red.
” I am your slave-boy, “I said, “Remember me? The priestess is dead. Now die with my memory the last one in your head. I send you to the Land of Shades!”
I quickly raised my bow and shot an arrow deep into his chest. He looked up in disbelief, but my rapid second arrow stuck him in the gut. I walked calmly toward him as he stood there, stunned, and put a third arrow through his right eye. His hands clutched at the arrow, but the damage was done. Then I shot the next arrow into the throat of the closest man in the ranks behind, and then another. Now our men cheered and charged at the Karfu’ans. They raced past me and the Big Man. He still stood, stupidly, blood pouring from his face. I picked up Adilos’ sword and strode to him and plunged it into his heart and drew it back as hard as I could. Blood gushed from the sword-wound. He staggered a step and fell face down on the sand. I looked down at him for a long moment. Then the noise of battle roused me and I looked up the hill to see the sack of the town of Karfu’ in full swing. For a moment I fought back a wave of dizziness. Then my head cleared and I ran up the blood-soaked slope, screaming a war-scream, holding the Adilos’ bronze sword above my head. Vengeance on Pelopa’s killers and all those who had harbored them! I let the blood-mad spirit of Are’ the Striker flow in my veins and knew nothing for the rest of the day.










7

The sword of Adilos finally broke beyond repair at the battle for Kerkryon, on the west shore of the Land of Great Tirana. I had a new sword by then, anyway, a fine one inlaid with traces of silver and lapis near the hilt. I took Adilos’ sword shards and buried them alongside the body of Lukos, who fell at the walls of Kerkryon. He had still been afraid after all these three years of war and glory. I also tossed in an arrow. He had been a fine archer, but, as they say, the Gods grew weary of him, or jealous.
The Gods had favored me, maybe the more so because I turned away from them. Oh, I made outward obeisance; the others wouldn’t understand if I didn’t attend to the sacrifices and the like, the omen reading, the feeding of the house snake, the Mysteries, the seers and oracles. But inwardly, I scorned the divine ones and those that blindly believed in their unseen guidance. I thought, with all I’ve seen, if there are Gods, then they’re very poor ones, no better than the worst humans. I spat at their stone and wooden images and even pissed on them when no one was looking or when I’d had too much vanna. I felt no fear. I would die. I could see that all people die. I would even tempt death to take me. What did it matter in a world where the good died just as easily as the bad?
I had soaked myself in war. At twenty summers, my blood ran hot for it. And I was very good at it. I was the best shot with the bow in all of the western lands around Hedra, and I had the ability to lead men into battle and back out again. I was growing bigger and stronger, though I would never be a big man. My muscles grew long and powerful and fast. I could fight with the sword and the staff, and wrestle men almost twice my weight. I found I could drink hard and take many women as well. They came seeking me, as I realized they had since I was a boy. Now they were the rightful spoils of the warrior. Men even offered their wives to me to curry favor as I became a leader.
Kurgan reckoned himself the King of Hedra after Adilos’ death, but no one liked him, and soon a faction promoted me to the throne of the city.
Hedra sat on the foothills of the rugged line of mountains across from the strait of the now burned-out city of Karfu’. I had found Pelopa there after all, her throat cut, a lifeless body in the shell of a burned-out house. She had died in our attack. I had killed the Big Man, but she had died anyway. Her death made me turn even farther away from the path of peace and simplicity, and reinforced my feelings of rootlessness. Hedra was poor and bare like the hills around it, though the river Eson did bring water enough for olives and some grapes and other crops. The sea at least was rich and villages aligned with our city brought their catch to market. It was a town like many others, with one main difference. Because, as the stories said, it was founded by the hero Aeon, it had walls around it. Aeon was the one, if he ever really existed, who brought the worship of Dyaus and Perunas to these lands, throwing under Awa, here called Afroda, to a secondary role. But the women, those witches who had been Awa’s servants since the dawn times, still worshipped Afroda anyway. The warlike men of Hedra and the other towns had had to build walls to keep each other from sacking their towns. There were over a thousand people in and around Hedra. We had a band of two hundred warriors, which could be brought up to four hundred if we were invaded.
We tried to forestall invasion by attacking our neighbors first. This also allowed us to take their goods and women. It was fair; they did the same to us when they could. The cycle of war was endless, only slowing down during rains and harvest times. I had no desire to be a farmer or fisherman, so I was glad there was war. Within two years I was the King of Hedra and its undisputed war-leader.
We raided ever farther afield for loot and security. Our neighbors hated us and sometimes formed alliances to attack us. But we had our allies too: the tribes and towns were full of untrustworthy men who could be bribed or forced through kidnapping to come along on our expeditions.
We made an alliance with the King of Itakoi, an island to the south. They had a strong force, with many brakkas and bowmen. The western plain of Great Tirina, the land of King Herakul, was like a ripe orchard ready for harvest by our combined forces. The Itakoian king Menes and I brought our men in many brakkas to the west of Great Tirina and plundered. We sacked the small city of Kerkryon, where Lukos fell. But no force of Tirina appeared to challenge us. I was disappointed. We all knew of the strength of Herakul, the consort of Hera the Goddess of Tirina. It was said that the goddess was still strong there and that the king was born at the beginning of the year and grew to full manhood by summer and then died at the mid-winter short day.
Of course, I didn’t believe that. No one could do that; it was just the kind of thing that simple people believed, like stories of blood-drinkers and flying horses. But King Herakul was reputed to be a very strong man and a smart King. We camped along the beach of the western shore and drank vanna and roasted some of Herakul’s sheep and laughed.
They attacked at dawn, when most of our men were sleeping off a good vanna sickness. Herakul came before them. He was huge, bigger even than the Big Man had been. He strode among our warriors, killing them without mercy with a bronze-edged war-club. We were heavily outnumbered and had no choice but to flee to our ships. But as we pulled away from the beach, He waded out into the waves and shouted to me.
“Come try our hospitality, Pelop the Pirate. I will serve you your head on a roasting stick with your cock stuffed in your mouth!” he roared his laughter. Even I had to laugh. He was most impressive. I called back.
“Set the table and pour the vanna! I’ll be there. Alive!”

Outside of making war and sleeping with any woman I wanted, I soon found the job of King to be both dull and bothersome. I had to sit listening to the complaints of the people of Hedra and the lands around it every day. Disputes over missing goats, a daughter’s lost honor, broken agreements to buy olive oil; it was as endless as it was boring. I longed to be out in the hills hunting or leading a raid. Even the women were tiresome. Each captured beauty tried to become my favorite at the expense of another, until I just wanted to be left alone by all them. They were like cats fighting. My male companions were somewhat better, though I saw the same infighting over who was closest to the King. I worried about a few of them as well. An arrow can easily find the wrong target during battle, and many young men wanted to be King. I also had to consider the older men who had been passed over by the people who chose me as their leader. I was an outsider, an upstart. One man, Andros, who had over thirty summers, had a hard time looking me in the eye. I knew he wished to plot against me. I had to watch my back.
I was given the King’s house, which was the finest building I’d ever lived in. It overlooked the valley of the Eson. A nearby waterfall made music for me. The house had stone pavements and stout columns painted red and blue. In the biggest of its four rooms was the Throne of the Adanoi; just a stone bench, really, with scenes of hunting birds and lions and the like painted on the walls of the room. The temple of Dyaus, where the men made sacrifice, was just across an open space. Further up the slope of the hill above the last of the whitewashed houses was the old temple of Afroda, who I still called Awa to myself.
All around the town, but especially near the place of the king and the temples, were walls made of large boulders. Simple people said the big stones had been put there by a race of one-eyed giants. It would seem that that it would take a giant to move such boulders. But when a stone rolled away or a section of wall fell from a ground shaker, the men used stout tree limbs and ropes to move the rock bit by bit into position until the wall was repaired again. I found that even the biggest stones could be manhandled. It was my responsibility to see that the walls were strong and whole. They were two man-heights tall and a few defenders could hold off attackers by throwing rocks or shooting arrows. Even women and children could throw things effectively. Wall and temple repair was a never ending and backbreaking task. I only wanted to hunt and fight, or take my rest with women and vanna. Fixing walls didn’t bore me, but it seemed brutish and harder than it should be. Also, the walls could have been stronger, with fewer gaps and loose stones.
So I thought about how I might make it easier and quicker. I have to admit I couldn’t come up with anything other than the rolling logs, logs we could put under the boulders either as skids or rollers. It was Fineus, a potter, who gave me a clue of how to improve our building technique.
Fineus was from the east, from a land called Hattu. He made cups and vessels on a wheel. It had a round rock at its base, with a column a hand’s width thick and two feet tall, held upright by carved wooden braces. On the top of the column was another round plate of stone. Fineus mounded his clay on the plate as he spun the wheel with his feet. It turned easily, and he cleverly held his hands and raised the clay into perfect bowls and beakers. As he finished each one, he ran a string through its base and lifted it off and put it to dry. In this way he was able to make ten bowls in the time it took other potters to fashion one. Before long, all the potters had copied his wheel.
As we were trying to move some fresh cut stones from a quarry to the section of wall that had to be replaced, I suddenly had the notion to take Fineus’s wheel and turn it on its side. I had my woodwrights try to do that. It took a few failed attempts, but at last we made a big flat table with two wheels made of big, joined tree-rounds mounted on a stout column, or, as Fineus called it, an axle. Braces that held the axle were fixed on the underside of the table, and a long tongue was attached at the front. We could tilt the whole thing over and slide a big rock on it, then slowly right it until it balanced, then haul and push it across the ground. Our first attempts broke and slid downhill, but each time we made one that worked better than before, and we soon found that we could move very heavy stones with much less effort than we ever had. Daedlos was the one who thought of harnessing horses to the tongue. We had to clear flat road areas at the base of our walls to roll this wheeled beast on. We found it to be so much easier to move the stones on our new cart that we built a long new section of high walls around the north side of the town. It was stronger than any of the giant-built wall. Other carts were constructed and people began hauling all manner of goods. I had to order the clearing of roads. Slowly, Hedra became the finest town anyone had heard of this side of Tirina.
But for all the building and warring, I was growing restless. One afternoon, when my mid-numbing daily audience was at last concluded, I wearily walked up above the acropolis and sat on a rock. The sun was lowering over the sea across the plain. I could see the mountain of Karfu’, now my subject land, across the strait, above the haze, many miles away. I could hear the lowing of cattle as they were driven in and voices of mothers calling to their children, the rattle of daily life. The west wind blew through the thorn bushes that clung to the dry outcropping. Below was the temple of Afroda.
A solitary figure moved in the shadows of the house walls below: a woman coming to Afroda’s temple. I did not recognize her at first. She plainly had the attributes of a woman the King would seek out, or who would seek out the King herself. She was slender without being too thin; her curves were guessed by the garment’s being pressed by the wind. Her hair was long, and strangely light. Almost everyone in these parts had dark hair. My reddish blonde was an exception. Hers was the color of dark honey. I wondered who she was. I slipped from my perch and made my way behind some boulders to sneak a closer look. I peered out from behind a rock not thirty feet away and watched her as she climbed the few rough-hewn steps to Afroda’s sanctuary. It was Vila, Adilos’ youngest sister. But I had not noted her beauty before. I guessed that her family had been secluding her. I had seen her three years before, when Adilos was killed, but she had only been a girl then. Now she was a woman.
She walked up the steps and into the temple. Just before she entered, she turned to look into the setting sun. The light framed her face. She was perfect, like an image of Afroda herself, with arched eyebrows and large eyes, full lips and a gentle, curved nose. Her hair was drawn back partially with ties away from her face. I was struck in an odd way. I was excited. But I bade my time and waited until she entered the temple to leave my hiding place and make my way back to the King’s house.
The following weeks were full of the king’s business, hearing disputes, building roads, and digging wells. I did my best, driven mostly by the fact that for some reason, I seemed to be somewhat more able to get things done than others were, despite the fact that my own skills were never as good as those of the people I directed. They needed me to bring them all together. But I found my mind wandering back to the vision of Vila Adilonika. I pondered her family. It was plain they didn’t want me to be King. They thought Adilos’s younger brother Aktyon should have been chosen. But the truth was, Aktyon was not the warrior his brother had been. He liked to drink too much, and was a bit of a coward in battle, though he had a knack for showing up right as a successful fight had taken place. He wasn’t a bad man, just not a natural leader, though there were some who fancied him above me. His older cousin Brukos was a dangerous man with ambition to be King as well. I saw Brukos as another one to be watched and taken seriously.
But I wanted to find a way to bring Vila into my sphere. The Adilonai were a proud family and Vila was not just some wench I could couch. She was royal blood. If they had been keeping her away from me, who did they have in mind for her? Perhaps her own cousin Brukos. I invited the leading families to a feast in Dyaus’ honor. I had killed a large boar and there was food and vanna a-plenty. I made the royal invitation complete on each family, so we ended up with every squalling brat and tottering crone and dribbling old man of fifty winters eating me out of larder, but it was worth the trouble, for Vila did come. She was indeed as divine up close as she had been at a distance, but she was surrounded by her mother and sisters and cousins. A man could not just speak to a single woman in public. He had to engage the whole family. I was as charming as my role required me to be, that is to say, I was somewhat haughty and let them know who was king while also complimenting the older women of the house. But I shot Vila looks and I caught her looking at me more tha once as well. I know her mother and aunts were like hunting falcons and probably didn’t miss a thing.
The next week was the summer’s high day feast, a day and night of merry-making for all. There was much vanna and bir and music and dancing. I had to sit on a throne and watch the revelry for too many hours. I had too much vanna as well, but instead of engendering a youthful wildness, this time it made me tired and irritable. At dusk, even as the people were becoming wilder, I slipped way up to my perch above the town. I wrapped myself in a dull grey cloak and became one with the stones. The sounds of the feasting came up, but the more I listened to it, the more it faded, until I was tuned to the wind and calls of the night hawks and owls hunting in the fields and across the dry ridgelines. I was watching one hawk float silently, riding the breeze, in place above a ravine, intent on its unseen prey below in the rocks. I was startled when a woman’s voice spoke almost in a whisper.
“It will wait until the vole makes a mistake and then fall on it.”
I looked up and my heart involuntarily jumped when I saw Vila standing a few feet away. Without speaking, I indicated she could sit with me on my rock. She settled own on her feet like a crouching lioness, relaxed, but still on her toes. She had dusky blur-grey eyes. I thought of Mata, my childhood mother. I had the thought that Vila was of our northern race, but could not see how that might be so. I turned back to the hawk, which was dipping and rising few inches on the wind. I nodded at the great bird.
“Like one who waits for a sign of weakness in a King.”
“Surely a King is not like a vole?” She asked, laughter in her voice, and yet a challenge as well.
“A lion is soon turned to mouse by a palace and a daily council. His mane falls out from having to listen to foolish disputes and he shrinks ever smaller until a cat could carry him off. The hawks are watching; that I know!”
The hawk now dove and then rose with flaps of his majestic wings, but with empty talons.
“Missed.’ She said.
“Mice are smart; they are aware of the hawks.”
“And how does a mouse king run his country?” she said.
I thought for a moment. This was smarter conversation than I usually got from my subjects. Most didn’t openly question the King. “A mouse does the best he can, even though he’d rather be drinking vanna with the other mice or raising little mice, or off fighting mouse wars. Perhaps one day the mouse grows tired of the hawks and runs away.”
“Running away would make sense for a mouse, but not for a King. Perhaps you don’t want to be a King?”
I stood up to ease a leg cramp. “I am a King by accident. I was a slave from the far north. I have lost everything I have ever had. Now I have more than I ever dreamed of. The gods have shown me favor, but I don’t know why.”
“You have invented carts, “She said. “Not many Kings can say that. Someday you’ll be called Pelop the WheelMaker, King of the Western Lands!” She laughed a little and I did too. We were at ease with each other.
I asked her, “Why has your family hidden you from me?”
“Why does the mouse hide its children from the hawk? You are known to take many women, but none for a queen.”
“Slave women, captives, and wives who are bored. None have been worthy.”
She rose gracefully to her feet and took a step away.” Perhaps you will find one who is.”
“Perhaps I shall, “I said. Then she was gone into the twilight.



8

I suppose the people said that Hedra was favored by the Gods in those days. With the alliance of Manas of Itakoi, we defeated the last of the warring towns and tribes to our east and south farther than the great lake and the hills and valleys that beyond and a relative peace settled over the lands. Without the interruption of war, farms flourished and people cleared new fields and traded olives, figs, sheep, and cows, and all the other goods and services that peaceful people thrive on. The wheeled cart was soon used by all, and roads for carts stretched out in every direction. I was pleased by the prosperity, though I noted that the important families expanded their share of the plenty, while the less fortunate by birth had a harder struggle. When I occasionally voiced this thought among the members of my council, all members of strong families, I got the sage advice that a rising tide lifts all brakka. Spoken like brakka owners, I thought.
My own wealth increased as well. By my twenty-first summer I had many sheep and goats and some fine cows and bulls. As King, I had three servants and three farmhands, all young boys with no other family for one reason or another. Spyros, a real adventurous rascal of fourteen summers, was my secret spy. He and the other hands, who he ordered around as if he was a little warlord, managed to watch the flocks and everyone else’s business as well. I had to cuff him occasionally for stealing from other farms, though I didn’t mind so much if I knew they were lifting the grapes of Brukos’ or Andros’ places.
These two men had grown rich in the last three years. They were both outwardly affable, but with the smiles of mask-dancers, and I knew they plotted against me in secret. Andros, like old Kurgan, thought he should have been king, not me. Brukos felt the same way, but in addition he begrudged me Vila. Both men were overly harsh with their servants and workers. They kept female slaves in misery. I knew because the girls confided in Spyros my thief. My boys were not slaves; I set them free. I had no desire for anyone to feel the lash from a bad owner. I had felt it myself. That left me free to honestly just yell at free men and reason with them sometimes, too.
Vila’s family, the Adilonai, came to accept that I was king despite Brukos’s jealousy. They also had to accept the fact that their headstrong daughter Vila had fallen in love with me, and I with her. She was unlike the other women I had known. Little Pelopa had been sweet, but subservient, mild. Other women were wild or seductive or meek. Vila was my equal, and she let me know it. She wasn’t impressed by my warrior deeds or my kingship. She looked at what I did and let me know if she thought it was smart or not. If she thought I was making the wrong choice, she told so and she told me why.
“If you run a road past Andros’ farm to the market, he will be beholden to you, “She said one day, as we were walking on the hills behind the town.” Right now, Lykos’s land prevents Brukos from rolling his carts all the way there. Lycos wishes to marry my cousin Artema.” She needed say nothing else. She was crafty, but also wise. Brukos could be tamed by his own self-interest.
“And what price do I ask of Brukos?” I asked her, laughing a little.
She smiled back, “Nothing. That will drive him crazy!” We both laughed.
I felt her tummy with my right hand. “He’s kicking.” I said
“You mean she.” She laughed again. The price had been steep: a hundred sheep and a grove of olive trees to her father for her hand. I gave the sheep, but the olive trees were within my own groves, accessible only through the King’s property. We smashed the vanna beakers, sacrificed a young bull to Dyaus and a lamb to Afroda, and she moved in to the King’s house. Before long, I needed to add two rooms; one with a little stream for washing running through an opening in the wall, water diverted from the Eson’s pools. We waited for our baby now.
“He will be strong and clever like his father, her mother said. Vila’s mother had taken the coughing sickness and looked like an old woman at forty summers. Vila had the rarest of people in her family, an aunt who was beyond sixty years! She was as withered as a dry fig, but she still cackled at a bawdy joke and liked her vanna!
Little Aon was ready to be born in the last of the harvest days. Vila began to get pains and we called the midwife and the priestess of Afroda. Vila still felt a kinship with the goddess. I was anxious enough that I secretly offered a prayer myself. I wasn’t allowed to be there, so I took my bow and went up into the hills. Spyros would run and call me with the news. I wandered up the ridge behind the town until I came to my favorite rock outcropping. This is where I came to ponder the King’s decisions. There were clouds floating in from the straits, tall, climbing clouds, with dark patches underneath and streamers of rain hanging down, the kind that doesn’t reach the ground. They looked like jellyfish of a higher sea. A steady wind blew, as it so often did from the west. It whistled through the bushes. The silvery leaves of the olive trees below shimmered in the breeze. I let my heart try to settle. This was childbirth, not battle, after all.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ said a man’s voice.
I spun around, my hand on my dagger. An old man stood two lengths away. He was thin, almost skin and bones; his skin was weathered like leather. He leaned on a rough staff. He put up his left hand and shook it. “No, no. “He said softly, “There is nothing to fear from me.”
His eyes were sad. He sat slowly down on a rock, moving as if it hurt him. I looked at him. He looked somehow familiar, though he was not of this kingdom; I knew all my subjects.
“Who are you, my friend? “ I asked. There was a hint of suspicion in my voice, I guess.
“No need for that, “he said, “I’m just an old man on a long journey.”
“A journey from where, to where?” I asked again.
“He looked up at me.” It’s the same journey we are all on. We don’t know where from and we don’t know where to. We think we get somewhere, but the journey never stops at all, really. One thing is for certain. I am almost done with mine.”
A crazy old wanderer. “ And where will mine take me?”
“No one can say. I have found that the unexpected has always been at my back. Mind the boars of Ikiros.”
I looked at him. The boars of Ikiros? Suddenly, I saw in my mind’s eye the man who gave me the flint blade when I was a captive slave boy. Was this the same man? A wave of dizziness came welling up from my gut.
A small voice called from far below. I turned around and saw Spyros running up the hillside. “King Pelop! King Pelop! It’s a boy!”
I raised my hand above my head and cried out, “Spyros!” he looked up, his smile gleaming. I turned back to the old man, my own grin from ear to ear no doubt, but he was gone. I looked beyond the boulders, but he was nowhere in sight at all. Vanished. I shook my head as if to wake from a dream. Then I shouted at Spyros again and ran down the hill to see my new son.


“Hold on to my hands, little Aon, “I said. My boy tried his wobbly legs and fell. Vila and I laughed. It eased her heart to see her son at ten months learning to walk. Vila’s mother had just died, being old at forty-one years.
“He’ll be shooting your famous bow soon, “she said. Aon’s little curls fell across his brow. He had his mother’s eyes and my hair. Vila put her hand across mine. Our fingers wrapped together. I felt a strong bond between us. Many men had wives who came to them as part of a deal between families, but this was different. Vila and I were of like minds. Our son looked like both of us. I could see the light of life in his eyes, the desire to walk into the world. I remembered my own childhood with Mata and it made me cry. But Vila took me in her arms and whispered, “don’t cry, little Stek.” I had told her my old name.
But Kings don’t cry; they rule as best they can. Though prosperity and peace had been on the lands for two years, I could sense trouble trying to crawl from its rat holes. There were disputes between the strong families about boundaries and rights to groves and springs. Petty nonsense, but both men and women can be roused to hatred over the slightest hurt. Once again I felt that Brukos and his friends were plotting against me.
“He meets with Andros and the three families, “said Spyros, who I had made my head of household. He had grown into a tall young man, only a year younger than I had been when I first became a soldier. I had taught him how to shoot the bow and fight with a sword. His gang of orphans, like skinny Janos and fat Mumo, had been trained bit by bit as well. They could patrol and keep watch over the land. But Andros and Brukos had young, hot-headed men who worked for him, too, as did other strong families. There were fights sometimes between them. I kept the peace, but tension was rising. I could count on the Adilonai and several other families, but there were many I could not trust.
I often climbed above the town to my ridge top, half seeking the old man. I never saw him, though. It was as if he had been only a dream. A dream or a visit from a god? I didn’t have the answer. Becoming a father had changed me a little. I had softened my conviction that the gods were false. Vila believed in Afroda. It was hard not to want to think that Fortune smiled on us. I forgot how fickle a God Fortune can be.
A messenger came in the fall from Manas in Itakoi. King Herakul had raided in the east with his army, as near as the town of Trona, a week’s march away. This was too close for comfort. Trona was on the main trade route to the east, at the base of a mountain pass. The messenger said that Herakul had a small band, only fifteen sextas - ninety men. I didn’t want to fight this time. We had trade enough with the north and by sea, why make war with Great Tirina? But the council shouted me down. The goods of several families went east by that road. Among the louder voices were those of Brukos’ allies, the Ellonai and Severai. I couldn’t back away from the fight without looking weak. If Brukos could build that notion into the people, I was through. My life and my family’s life would be danger if I was ousted. Being a king is like being the biggest, meanest dog in the pack; let them turn on you, and they’ll kill you in a second.
So I formed a war-party. I made sure Brukos and Andros were with me, because if one must keep one’s friends close, one must keep one’s enemies closer, but I made up the troop of more of my allies than theirs. Like me, they couldn’t refuse though the circumstances were less to their liking than they might have wished. I left Spyros in charge of the house, and brought Vila’s family there as well, with their men and servants. We would strike out and try to damage Herakul’s band and come quickly back. I had no illusions about killing Herakul himself, but I thought we could discourage his incursion into our lands by a show of force. I secretly thought there was a deal to be made. Trona was not that important to Hedra and it was a long way from Tirina. I didn’t guess the real reason for the incursion.
I was almost ready with the preparations for war. My new armor had been sewn and my bow and arrows were tied and strung. I was sitting on the front steps of our palace when I saw Janos, one of my field-boys, running up the hill as fast as he could go. I stood. He came and threw himself down at my feet, grasping my ankles. My face froze in fear.
“Let them kill me! “He cried, his young boy’s tears breaking out of his dusty eyes. “Let them take me!”
“I reached down and pulled him off my feet and stood him up. I felt my anger rising.
“What have you done?” I said as calmly as I could.
“Spyros…he...”
“Out with it!” I said.
“We were caught near the vineyards of Andros. They came up on us. Spyros killed Antygus. It was in self-defense!”
My heart reeled. Spyros! I had counted on him to keep order while I was gone on this raid.” Is he still alive?”
“He’s hiding in the barns below.” Our barns, three rings of low rock wall with a thatched roof. Not much of a castle. I picked up my bronze long-sword and called Vila to bring the family in. I set seven guards around our house and told Janos to stay put as well. I whistled for my two hunting dogs, a pair of fierce wolf-killers. I set off down the trail to our barns.
There was a crowd of more than twenty men, all armed with one weapon or another. They were from Andros clan and the related families. There would be no fighting this one out. I approached and Andros confronted me harshly.
“Your boy has killed one of mine – on my property. You know the law!” Andros’ fury at the breaking of the code was justified, but it only thinly disguised his deeper hatred of me. He would be most pleased to cut the throat of my head boy. I held up my hand to signal a moment of no action. Andros stepped back. This was the time-honored way of letting one last chance have its possibility. I looked through the thatch and saw the wild eyes of my favorite, Spyros, for whom I had such high hopes. I took a deep breath and tried to not let it show to the others. I called him out.
“Come, Spyros, we must reason out the charges. You know the law.”
Spyros slowly came out from the barn, his eyes darting in every direction, gauging the crowd. We were completely outnumbered.
“Tell us what happened.” I said. I stood apart from him, between him and Andros’ men. I held my sword in my right hand. There was a commotion. A group of four men came up carrying the dead boy’s body on a makeshift littler of poles. One arm hung down. It was streaked with blood. Andros’ veins were standing our on his forehead; his face was red, his fists clenched.
“Did you do this?” I said to Spyros?” he nodded but didn’t look down. “And why?” I asked
“We were going down the road. Antygus attacked me when I wasn’t looking.”
“Liar!” yelled Andros, “You were in my vineyards, stealing grapes!”
Spyros looked up.” I was in the road. Antygus and three others were laying in wait for us to pass. Then they came at us. He had a spear. I defended myself with my knife.” Spyros looked straight ahead. I judged him to be telling the truth.
I Turned to Andros and the others. “If a man is attacked he has the right to defend himself.” I said clearly.
“It doesn’t matter, “hissed Andros.” Blood for blood. He or one of yours must die!”
“And then we will have to kill another of your clan, and so on.” I said.
“It is so, that is the Juna.” Said Andros. I moved over closer to Spyros. He was like my brother, my younger brother I’d never had. But his killing of Tranos, no matter how justifiable, would bring endless bloodshed on Hedra.
He looked at me, unflinching. I grabbed his hair and with one quick move, raised my arm and slit his throat. His mouth opened in surprise but he kept looking at me, and I held his gaze until his eyes went dark. I held his head as his body went limp and his warm blood poured all over my hand and arms and splattered on my legs. He became lifeless in a few seconds and I let his body down gently and closed his open eyes with my bloody fingers. I crouched next to him, silently wishing his soul a safe journey to the next world, whatever that was. Then I straightened up and looked Andros in the eyes.
“I have ended it by my hands. There will be no further blood-feud.”
Andros stared back darkly. I had robbed him of his blood letting. But this was the law of the Juna; a hard law for Spyros and for me. I was sure he had only acted in self-defense.
We burned Spyros’ body at dusk at the top of the ridge. His ashes mixed with the sea=breeze blowing off the distant straits. I sat there by myself long after the embers had died down, letting dust pour through my fingers.


Vila brought our son Aon to me as I stood in the road before the new city gates. The men were lined up behind me in a long row. I was dressed in my leather armor and I wore a boar-hide helmet with copper plates sewn into it and a horse-hair plume that she had tied for me. My horse, who I called Tarn, after my childhood friend, pawed the dusty ground. I would ride this time, as befitted a warrior king. I carried my bow and my new sword of bronze. My men shouted and stamped their spear-butts into the dust. Brukos and Andros and their men stood in the back of the column. They couldn’t face me, but they had their obligation to the war-party under the Juna.
“For Hedra! “ I shouted. “For Pelop!” They answered. I took Aon in my arms and kissed his little forehead. I looked into Vila’s eyes.” For Vila and Aon, “I whispered. I held back a welling up. Vila stayed steady and noble. She took back Aon in one arm, then Janos handed her a cup of vanna from our vines. She poured it on the ground.
“For Dyaus and Afroda!” She called, and the men raised a war-cry. Clouds had been building and there was a rolling of thunder in the mountains to the east. The men cheered this hopeful omen. I wasn’t as confident in it. My heart was heavy with Spyros’ death, my anger with Andros, and my parting from my family.
As the column crested the low pass behind the town, I turned in my saddle and looked back. The town looked safe, with its high walls. The plains below were peaceful, silvery groves stretching out towards the sea.
“I’ll be back soon enough, “I said to myself.
At the last moment, I looked down the ridgeline. There in the distance was perhaps a figure silhouetted by the rocks. The figure seemed to raise an arm. A shepard? The old man? It might have been a bush blowing in the west wind. I couldn’t be sure. A shudder ran down my spine, but I turned away and accepted a skin of vanna from Trakles, a trusted old soldier friend. Others of our party were singing a bawdy marching song about a soldier’s manhood and the enemy’s mouth.
“Off to war! “He said merrily. “It’s been too long!”
“Too long. “I answered. I drank a deep pull, praying to the vanna-god to help me match his spirit.

We sent young boys running ahead to spy out the land. I wished I had Spyros with me, as the fastest runners were of Brukos’ group. I felt secure enough in Manas’ messenger’s information and didn’t look for Herakul to be this far west. We traversed three ranges, and on the third night we camped along the bank of a small stream that flowed from a pass that lay before us. I judged it to be safe. We’d enter the pass at dawn, or find a way around it. Trona still lay at least two marches ahead. I did order no fires, though this caused some to grumble. There’s always grumbling among soldiers, especially when they haven’t been on a campaign for a while. There was vanna a -plenty in skins; too much, I thought. I went among the troop, ordering them to slow down. I set pickets at some distance.
I had a hard time sleeping. I kept hearing noises in the darkness. Around the midnight time, I crept out to one of the pickets, a young lad named Patreas. He was from a trading family and I knew he had been as far as Trona the year before. He was sitting on the hillside hidden in some bushes. I sat with him and we watched the shooting stars. I asked him about his family, made small talk. What did he know about this pass?
“It’s famous for its big boars,” He said.” It’s called Ikiros.”
I stood up quickly, and then I bent over him and hissed,” be on guard!” I hurried back to the camp and made my weapons ready. The old man! The Boars of Ikiros!
Still, nothing happened. After a few hours, I must have dozed in spite of myself. I woke to harsh cries of war.
“They’re upon us! Dyaus!
“Perunas!”
Arrows were whistling through the dawn air and there was a clatter of war-club and arrows on leather armor and copper helmets and cries of men, angry yells. The attackers were swarming out from the pass and from the slopes above where Brukos’s men had been picketed. I jumped up, pulling on my helmet. I knocked an arrow and shot a man running right at me, then another, but here were far too many. We were soon overrun, overpowered, and captured at spear point by a force four times the size of ours. I ordered the men to throw down their weapons and shouted out as loud as I could.
“Your King! I will fight your king! I am Pelop, King of Hedra!”
A huge, slightly older man came out of the trees. He was powerfully built and quite tall, almost a giant out of a child’s night–tale. He had a long, reddish beard and carried a war-club. His face was ruddy and his eyes blue, contrasting with his dark hair. He wore a helmet made of a giant boar’s head, complete with tusks that curved down along his sideburns. He grinned at me and said, “Ah, my King Pelop. Good to see you again.”
“Fight me, Herakul!” I snapped.
“Not at this time. You are going to be my guest, my friend. We can reason out our disputes. Or not!” He leaned back and roared his laughter. His men brought ropes and tied my men hand to neck to ankle. He said, “you ride with me, young king.” He had my horse Tarn on a lead. But I refused and insisted on being bound along with my troop.
“Suit yourself, “Shrugged Herakul. He wheeled on his enormous horse and rode off, leaving us surrounded by spearmen. There was no point in resisting. Maybe we would be ransomed. That must be his plan, I thought. I looked around. Brukos and Andros were not among the captured. Treachery! I vowed that if they hadn’t been killed in the attack, I would do the job myself as soon as I was free.
Herakul marched us hard in a southeasterly direction. At nightfall, we camped. My men’s bonds were somewhat loosened, though not removed. There was roast pig and vanna enough. Herakul untied me and had me eat with him
At first I ate in sullen silence, but Herakul was a gregarious giant. He kept talking about Great Tirina and his herds and the walls of the citadel, and Queen Hera, who was replaced every year by a younger woman, who took the name of each the three mother goddesses in turn. The King ruled in name only for three years, until all three goddesses had been his consorts. The Queen and the powerful witch-priestesses of Afroda, Atena, and Hera held the real power. At the end of his reign, he was to be sacrificed. Herakul therefore wasn’t this man’s real name; he was “The” Herakul.
“Scryonas, that’s me,” he mumbled through a mouthful of boar leg, “from Alkyon in the far north, the land of the Thrakioi and Makedoi. The witches think they’ll kill me, but I’m too strong!” he laughed and quaffed vanna from the wine-skin.
But I had seen what priestesses could do. In my own childhood land men had disappeared forever and people whispered fearfully of the wild women, who became possessed of the goddess under the feasts of the changing moons and killed, some even said ate, men in their bloody frenzy. New men always filled the gap left by the ones who vanished. Some undoubtedly ran away, but others were just gone. The witches had great power. Their three goddesses made one eternal goddess: young seductress Afroda, Wise mother and Queen Atena, and old wise witch and crone, Hera. The oldest priestesses were only thirty summers or a little more. People didn’t live long enough to get truly old. Vila’s shriveled old vanna- drinking aunt was a rare exception.
“How many moons do you have left.” I asked.
“One!” he laughed even louder and slapped his knee with his greasy hand. He wiped his hand on his tunic. His beard was streaked with boar- fat and flecks of dirt and twigs. He wasn’t very king-like, but he was bigger and stronger than anyone else. He leaned forward across the edge of the fire and looked at me as if to share a secret.
“In Copper-land there is no Goddess. I hear than men rule without fear. They have wings on their backs and walk above the sea! And beyond, in the land of the Faeroes, there are temples that look like mountains. They reach the sky!”
He grinned conspiratorially.” I am going there. You should come with me!”
He was drunk enough that I thought I might later make my escape, but I said, “The Faeroes? Never heard of them.” Of course, I had heard the tales, but didn’t give them much credence. I also heard of fire-breathing snakes and Gods that rode across the sky on golden horses. All the nonsense of simpletons, though I’d never say that aloud for fear of being killed by the same mob of simpletons. There’s nothing more dangerous than a believer, or a group of them- even worse.
“They’re living gods who walk the earth. Their kingdom is beyond the sea, but they’re real. Our traders go there. The lands are all sand, and there are horses that have great humps on their backs and live without water!” he slapped his thigh again and let out an enormous belch.
I egged him on, pretending to drink more vanna, while actually not sipping at all, letting him drain the wine-skin by himself. The more he drank, the more he carried on. Still, there was something direct and straight forward about Herakul, or Scryonas, or whatever his real name was. Under other circumstances, I would have drunk with him and enjoyed it. For now, all I could think about was how to get me and my men free of him.
“I’ll go with you,” I said, “But I have to go home and prepare my kingdom for my absence. There are those I can’t trust.” The truth wasn’t a bad tack. I figured he was so drunk, he might even agree and set us free. But to my surprise, he sat up straight and looked me in the ye,
“That’s true enough, “he said. I wondered what he knew. ” But you have to come to Tirina and see the walls first. Then we’ll talk.”
Herakul then rose and directed his men to tighten the bonds and tied me too.
“I may be a fool, “he said, “But I’m no idiot. Sorry.”
With that he retired. I lay down next to the fire, hog-tied and useless. Tomorrow was another day.

9

Herakul marched us for two days southward until we reached the sea. There we embarked on his fleet of many brakkas and crossed the straits to Great Tirina, the Kingdom of Herakul and his queen, Hera. We marched once more for two days along the coastline around a range of high mountains and then turned south again. We passed through a rugged landscape and went past the walled citadel of a place called Mykena, on top of a rocky hill, and came out at last into the wide plain of Argo. Flat farm land stretched out before us. We tramped down a long road that ran straight through the fields, many of which were lined with cleared stones. The high hills around the plain were tipped here and there with forts and other rock-built structures. Farms and villages were numerous; I could see why Tirina was so powerful: there were many people from which to raise an army. Some of the farms were large. They put our farms to shame. At the far end of the plain we came before the famous walls of Tirina itself. In the distance beyond the citadel was a solitary tall, round hill and the glistening shimmer of the sea.
On the marches Herakul had been treating me as an equal, offering the wine-skin and giving me a horse to ride, the latter of which privileges I declined, as my men had to walk. My bonds had been loosened during the day, but tightened once again each night, and an extra guard had been placed on me as well. Herakul seemed somewhat embarrassed about this, but pretended that it was just the way it was done. He didn’t seem like an exceptionally bad leader. He didn’t really mistreat my men. Yet despite my arguing for our freedom, we were marched in bonds to Tirina.
Tirina lived up to its oft- told reputation. The walls rose above a low hill just a short distance from the sea’s edge. Lush farmland lay all around the citadel, whose mighty walls were at least three times the height of Hedra’s tallest. They truly looked as if giants had built them. Some of the stones were so big I couldn’t see how they possibly could have been moved by men. Crowds of people, farmers and ware-sellers with horses full of stuffs, women with their heads covered, dirty-faced children, and some better -dressed men lined the way, a wide, level road that led to the gates. Many more stood atop the ramparts of the citadel. Herakul rode an enormous horse and shouted to the throng on the citadel walls, who shouted back. Women trilled. Drummers and bazu players joined in, with the long notes of ram’s horns blowing, and the huzzahs and with the clattering of spears on shields of the Tirinite warriors it all made a rousing din.
As we drew near to the gate, I could see a pavilion of scarlet cloth on poles on the rampart above the entrance to the citadel. Beneath it stood several women; priestesses, and one in flowing purple robes that I guessed was the Queen, Hera. The road branched and came to the gate, which was so large that three horsemen could ride through together. Above the lintel was a carved owl, the symbol of Atena and Hera. I looked up and saw Hera’s face. She was older than me, beautiful and proud, with long black hair and full lips painted red. Her eyes were lined with black and in her hair were two snakes of copper and lapis, intertwined in a circlet. In her left hand she held a long snake of copper, painted with rings of different colors. She looked straight at me with no expression, but raised her hand slightly to salute Herakul, who beat his mace across his chest and yelled, “Tirina!”
The people cheered their King in return. As we crossed under the gate, those above spat on us to remove the evil eye, and threw pebbles down on our heads. They cried out curses and laughed at our misfortune. I felt hot from anger, but held it back, managing a defiant smile in their faces, and one for the haughty, silent queen as well.
They brought us into the courtyard of the citadel and forced us to our knees. All around us the throng stared down from the walls. Herakul dismounted and strode to our men, pulling out his knife. He reached down and cut Dukas’ cords and dragged him to his feet by his long hair, then threw him down in the dust, still holding the poor man by his hair. Herakul lifted Dukas head up, exposing his neck. Dukas said nothing.
Herakul raised the knife in his right hand.
“Hera” he shouted. A great cheer went up. Herakul swept his knife down and cut Dukas’ throat with one cut. The blood poured from his neck and Herakul dumped his body in the dust like he was throwing down a rag. He raised his bloody knife up again and stared at the Queen, who answered him in kind with her raised right hand. She showed no emotion still. The multitude cheered and the drums beat for a few minutes. Then the crowd bean to disperse slowly. The Queen and her retinue moved off along the walls. We were left on our knees in the courtyard, ringed in with spearmen. Herakul approached me. He looked grim.
“Was he a good man?” He asked, looking away from my stare.
“Dukas Silonai. He had three sons and a small farm. He did his duty.”
“I’m sorry, “said the big man, now looking at me with reproach. “The sacrifice must be made.”
“What happens now?”
“My friend, are you really as stupid as your words make you sound? This is the end of my reign. They mean to kill me.”
“And who will be king?”
“You will, you fool!” He clapped his hand on my shoulder and walked away heavily in the dust.


When the shadows of the dying day were stretching out, I was brought under guard to a well beneath the walls and washed by two young women. They touched me and my manhood responded in spite of myself. They giggled but clothed me in a tunic and robe and put a circlet of woven grape vines on my head as crown. It was getting dark as I was taken to the Queen’s chamber. It was at the end of a long passageway of huge stones that formed a tunnel, the likes of which I’d never seen. I couldn’t help but notice the fine stonework. How did they raise these huge rocks? The stones made a peak above the passageway.
Hera’s chamber was lit by several torches. The walls were hung with red cloth and her bed of woven blankets was laid out on a base of carved stone, with snakes and birds and the like hewn into the rock. She sat near a large window on a wooden bench, the legs of which had beasts’ feet carved into them. She waved off her women attendants and motioned for me to sit on a three- legged stool. On a small table between us were goblets made from gold, richer than I had ever seen. There were colored stones inset in the shining metal. A painted jug held pungent vanna.
“Sit with me, King Pelop.” She said. Her voice was smooth and practiced. She was a real queen, used to power. She looked at me with a very slight smile on the corners of her painted lips. “Tell me about Hedra, your kingdom.”
I stood defiantly. She kept smiling and made no show of her true emotions, though I could see the bronze behind her eyes. She made no move, she just sat regarding me. After a moment I slowly sat.
She took a goblet and handed it to me.” We’ll drink as rulers, together.”
It seemed more like an order than an invitation.” My men don’t have vanna.”
“What a quaint country name for it. We call it vin. And oh, but they do, “She said. “ They are being well treated. They will soon be going home.”
“And I will go with them.” I said. I looked down at the golden wine glass. The vanna was dark red, like sacrificial blood. I took a deep drink.
“Will you?” she said. Another statement; a challenge.
We sat in silence for a minute. The sound of night insects came through the window and other sounds, from far away, beating drums and many women trilling and singing. The sounds seemed to be coming closer.
“The people of Tirina celebrate tonight. Here, the tradition is for the king to be reborn every three years. It has been that way since the time of the Goddess’s dreams. The Goddess had told us that this is the law that will preserve Tirina. Tonight is that night.”
“Herakul, what happens to him?” the wine was quite heady, beyond the skill of our wine-makers in flavor as well.
“The Herakul is the consort of Afroda, Atena, and Hera. Here they are.” She clapped her hands once and two priestesses came in. One was a young grey-eyed girl of amazing beauty, the other no less striking, but maybe five years older. They sat next to Hera. We were almost touching. They were made up in the fashion of Hera. Their breasts were exposed in the manner of priestesses, and were no less alluring for that.
“I am Hera, the oldest of our three queens. The Hera-kul, the seed of the Goddesses, marries all of us. Together we are the goddess who makes the crops grow and the hunt succeed. Without us and our consort, the seeds in the field will fail and people of Tirina will perish. The Herakul plants his seed in us and we grow and give birth to new goddesses who bloom like Afroda, the spring flower.”
Afroda, Atena, and Hera herself were indeed women to excite a man. I was myself fully alive. The wine made this all seem right, somehow. I struggled to think of Vila. The sounds of women trilling and rums beating came from just beyond the window. The night was full of intoxicating energy. I drank again, draining the goblet. Afroda’s hand touched my leg. Atena reached out and stroked my face. Hera’s hand slipped up and grasped my manhood. She whispered, “You are the Herakul, my king.” I felt strangely dizzy. The three women seemed to come towards me, or maybe I fell towards them. That’s all I remember.


I awoke slowly, slipping in and out a dream of the goddesses. They were touching me and I was the earth –man -god bringing the seed to their bodies. I strained to stay there, but something hurt my back. I rolled to my side and I fell off something and hit a hard wooden floor. I jolted awake. The rocking of a sea swell lifted me up and own. The sky was grey and low.
“Wake up, drunken sea-dog!” came a deep voice.
I pulled myself up on the rail. I was on a brakka. The sail bowed out above me. There were men sitting at the rowing benches, their oars shipped as the wind swept the brakka on the waves. A familiar shape crouched on the deck in front of me, his face grinning broadly, his beard glistening with drops of water.
“Herakul?” I said.”What is happening?” My head was cloudy. I hurt, I felt sick.” Where are we?”
“You’re free of the witches’ spell, my little king. I rescued you from that fate.”
“My head pounded.” The vanna.” I was hungover as I hadn’t been in years.
“The vanna of the goddesses. It makes you a great man for a while! Then it kills you. They poison you slowly with their black potions. I knew, so Ektor and I slipped in later, when they were done with you, and we wrapped you in a blanket and brought you to the ship. “He laughed.
I stood up. My legs were unsteady, so I grabbed the rail. There were islands away in the distance, through the low clouds.
“So now I can go home. Thank you, Herakul.” I said.
“Home? “He laughed again. “You’re lucky to be alive and free! While you have slept off your madness, the west wind has blown us for two days now towards Tin-land, Karpatha. That’s where I’m bound, and you with me for now. I have only just gotten away with my life, little King. Once I’m gone to the east, you can turn the brakka around and come again to your lands.”
“But why did you capture me to begin with?”
“The witches told me if I brought you to them, I could go without being killed. During their mad ceremonies death is the usual fate of the Herakul. But they lied to me. While you were bedding the lot of them, and I was drinking to my freedom with a woman I like, their killers came to get me. I had to fight off ten men to get free. Lucky for us both, I had this ship ready in the harbor of Napli. I had the bright idea that to pay them back for their treachery I would rob them of their new Herakul. So I did! Joke’s on them, may they rot in the underworld.” He spat on his robe to ward off the vaskania of the Goddesses. “So we sail to Tin-land; then she’s all yours. We couldn’t row against this wind anyway.”
I was elated to know that I would again be able to return to Hedra and Vila, though I knew that once I got home again, I would have to build a bigger armed force to guard against the army of Tirina in the future. I pondered the traitors that had tricked me into heading east to begin with and I plotted my revenge. I would get rid of Brukos and Andros and the rest. I thought of Vila worrying and wondered if those dogs had tried to seize her and our lands already. I hoped my allies could hold it together until my return. It had only been two weeks. I wished the brakka across the waves, but there was nothing to be done for now but sail and row and wait.
“Thank you, Herakul, my shipmate!” I said, giving him my hand. He shook it in both of his and grinned.
“Just Scryonas of Makedoi from now on.”
“Somehow I think you’ll always be known as Herakul, the strong, the death-cheater!”
We laughed.
The winds built stronger and stronger until they were blowing a gale from the northwest. For two days we bailed and worked in teams to trim the sail and hold the brakka downwind so it wouldn’t broach and capsize. Herakul proved how strong he was, manhandling the tiller through two endless nights of high waves and howling wind. The men prayed to Pozdeon and every other god they had ever heard of. I trusted no gods anymore, but I had faith in Herakul’s strength as long as it held out, and my wits, as long I kept them. On the third morning since I had awakened, we sighted Karpatha, or Kreta, as some sailors called it. High mountains rose beyond dry slopes dotted with whitewashed towns, vineyards, and groves. But there was no landing for us in this gale. We were swept relentlessly along the coast. We missed one small harbor after another. At last we rounded a big point and came into slightly calmer waters. Herakul pointed ahead across a huge bay.
“Nosso, the city of Minos!”
Inland at some distance from the coast on a low hill were the usual whitewashed buildings, but this town was bigger than the others. A port lay at its feet. We managed to bring the brakka close to the shore. It held together as we rode in the heavy surf, but the waves were the kind that break right on the shore , sucking the sand from beneath them before thundering down in a wall of foam and chaos. The tail of the brakka lifted up on a huge swell, the boat turned violently on its side, and crashed upside down onto some rocks and broke apart. We were thrown into the sea and tossed about like corks. three men drowned, but twelve of us managed to get ashore, half-drowned ourselves, including Herakul.
I clambered up on the rocky shore and looked into the churning water at the brakka being broken up and sinking. My heart sank like the ship. Vila!
Herakul shook himself like a horse to fling the salt water from his shaggy hair and beard and shrugged. “You’ll find another boat. This is a land of seafarers and traders. Besides, maybe the gods have other plans for you! “
To the underworld with the gods! Herakul was ready to be here, brakka or no brakka, for he had no home to return to and the sailors’ tales of Karpatha were full of beautiful, easy-going women and fine vanna.
“They don’t make war on this island, “said one old salt.” They make love instead! The women are the daughters of sea-nymphs and will keep you forever happy in their embraces!” The sailors, like Herakul, were ready for that. “I hear they love bulls as much as men!” One of them laughed. “King Herakul ought to be right at home!” I had heard all these tales and I didn’t believe them. People are people, not old witches’ tales. I spied out the land. The town was up on a low hill, tall mountains behind that, and the little port was to the west. A small stream looked like it came right down to the coast from the citadel of Minos. Scrub trees lined the stream and olive groves lay to the west and east. The land along the coast looked worn, as if people had tended to it for many generations already. There were low stone walls among the groves and houses, some large in the distance.
We salvaged what we could from the wreck, which wasn’t much, just some rope and other odds that had floated ashore. We had no food or vanna or weapons. I scanned the water, looking for anything that might still be floating. I turned to Herakul to ask, what now? But he was looking inland and I saw the look in his eyes that warned of danger. I spun around. More than thirty archers and spearmen had come out of the trees near the stream. They spread out in a half circle around us and drew their bowstrings.
Herakul raised his arm and called out, “Peace! We come in peace. Have mercy on the shipwrecked!”This was the common plea of those who foundered in a strange land, and it generally required hospitality of whoever found them, though it was no guarantee.
A short, but powerfully built man, strangely beardless, with long, black, curly hair, stepped a little closer, his bow held at the ready. Our sailors looked less than sure of their non-warlike claims of the moment before.
The man scowled, “where do you hail from?” His accent was hard to understand, though it was a version of our tongue he spoke, and his tone was curt. “Tell us now, or die!’
Herakul bowed to the short man. “I am Scryonas, servant of King Pelop of Hedra.” Still bowed at the waist he turned slightly with his palms out humbly to point me out. I stood as tall as I could. The ten other men of our crew had slipped behind me in a knot. The short man looked at me. I didn’t look much like a king right now, I thought; soaked, sandal-less, and in a torn tunic. Still, a king may be shipwrecked as easily as any man.
Without saying anything to us, the short man called to his men to bind us.” Hedra; never heard of it.” he looked disdainfully at our motley crew.” You are trespassing on the land of King Minos of Karpatha, servant of the Goddess. Take them to the King.” He said grimly.
The Goddess. There seemed to be no escaping her wherever I went. She had certainly brought me into a lot of trouble so far. Once again I found myself about to be bound. Well, a king may be bound as any other man as well, but I had been tied up for a week, and then drugged and taken on a boat away from my kingdom and wife and child. I’d had enough.
As they were about to tie me I said to the short man, “Kill me if you like, but I am a king, and I’ll not be bound. I call on King Minos to honor the hospitality of royal house and shipwreck.” I stared at the short man, my eyes unflinching.
He stared back hard for a moment and then said, “very well, you’ll walk freely, but if you try to run, I will cut down you and your servants, king.”
Herakul shot me a look that suggested laughter. I could have let him be killed for the trouble he had brought on me.
“I’ll not run; you have my word.” I was a king, after all, despite my captor’s contemptuous doubts.
Beyond the rocky beach there was a road that led up the streamside. After a short march past the low stone fences of olive plantations, from behind which stared a few grove workers, we reached the low hill whereupon sat the palace of King Minos of Karpatha. It was a collection of finely wrought stone buildings, laid out in terraces above neatly tended olive groves. I admired the masonry; it was finer than any I’d yet seen. It made the giant-built citadel of Tirina look like a child’s pile of rocks. The stones were square cut and fitted together better than any walls back home. I wondered how they cut the blocks. On the raised terraces, there were carved points of stone I later learned were meant to be bull’s horns. Red-painted columns held up flat rooftops. I was impressed; I felt like crude villager. But something puzzled me. It didn’t seem right. Then I realized – there were no walls! So it was true; it was a land of peace. Then why were we bound and treated like prisoners of war?
The short man kept his silence all the way, despite my attempts to sound him out. He led us through a stone gate and up a set of wide, handsome stairs to an open plaza surrounded by low buildings. On the walls of the buildings were lively paintings of people, leaping sea-fish, crouching leopards, and other subjects. As we approached, a long, brown house-snake slithered away and disappeared in an opening in a wall. There were many people in the courtyard. The men, who like our guard wore no beards, looked at first like young boys, slight of build. They wore loin-cloths and colorful skirts. Some had strands of ivy woven in their hair. There were also priestesses not unlike the ones of Tirina, with open robes and strange short garments around the shoulders. They wore their hair long and flowing, with strings of shiny beads tied up and through their locks in a most attractive manner. They were all of a type, men and women both: short, thin, and dark-skinned, with long wavy black hair. I had the thought that these were the strong families, as at home in Hedra. They looked like people of leisure, if so, there were far more of them than at Hedra or even Tirina, for there must have been over a hundred just in the palace grounds alone. The fancy courtiers fine appearances made me, in my wet, torn garment and without sandals, feel like a bit of an oaf, but I stood like a king. At least I had a beard!
The leader of the guards took me into an open chamber with three walls and a porch held up by thick columns that were narrower at the base than at the top. A painting of a harvest scene graced the wall. In this scene handsome men and beautiful women gathered grapes and olives. Some held baskets of fish and fruits. Flying fish were above them. It was the nicest decoration I had every seen. I was amazed that someone had painted anything so lively. The paintings of Hedra were very crude by comparison. Carved out of a white stone was a simple yet elegant throne on a raised dais. The seat was worn smooth from use, polished and slightly stained grey. Lengths of fine cloth hung down and screened off the entryways into the chamber. There was a tripod seat. The guard bade me sit and then left me by myself in the room.
A shadow moved at one of the entryways and a slender, older woman of maybe thirty years, dressed in the colorful skirts and open jacket I had seen outside came in. Her long, black hair was bound up with strings of sea-pearls and tiny shells. Long tresses hug down seemingly with no order to them. She wore a necklace of lapis and silver that draped down between her breasts. On her right arm was a ringlet that looked like a snake coiled around her arm. She looked right in my eyes. There didn’t seem to be any malice or cunning to her face. But I was wary.
I had stood, but now she sat on the throne and motioned for me to sit on the tripod. She rested her hands on her lap and smiled slightly at me.
“I am Pasifa, one of the ladies of the court of king Minos. I speak Achaean, what we call your language, for I am originally from Mykonos, a land to the north. Please tell me about your travels and why you are here in our land. It is forbidden for travelers to be here without our approval.” She still smiled.
“It is a long story; I fear it would bore you. Shall I just say that we are shipwrecked while sailing to copper-land?”
“I would rather have you tell me the truth, King of Hedra.” She said.
So I told her the truth. There wasn’t anything to hide, except Herakul’s identity. We weren’t, in fact, there to harm the Karpathans. I just wanted to get back home. So I told her so. She asked me about Herakul. “Who is this Scryonas? He’s plainly a big man. Is he your true king in disguise?”
I tried not to laugh. “He was a king; but he left his throne”. I hoped I wasn’t sentencing him to a poor fate for his having deserted the goddess.
“You protect him; that’s admirable in a friend. I hope it’s smart. He is strong; he will ride the bulls. You will watch.” She fussed with her robe’s hem, brushing off a strand of cobweb.” You will be our guest, because I believe that much of what you have told me is most likely true. I don’t; think you have come here to do us harm. Across the eastern sea is a new great king who seeks power over all. We fear his agents. He has not yet sailed here, but our traders have seen his ships in the dawn sea. He sacricies to different gods, this one. war gods with wings and lightning.”
“is this the faroe I have heard the sailors speak of?” I asked.
“ No, the land of the faroes is to the south and east of Karpatha. Te faroe is the mightiest king of all, but the people of Egypt, his land, do not venture out I conquest, at least not so far. We trade with their kingdom.”
I nodded, but I could truly only picture a small fortified citadel surrounded by a few large farms and villages. How great could these kings be? I could bet they weren’t one-eyed giants with wings. I was a king, as well!

We were boarded in a clean hall of polished stone hung with bright tapestries and floored with woven rush mates. There were comfortable wooden chairs and benches. We were kept well supplied with vin and bread and fruit and cheese and fresh fish and lamb. The sailors felt their tall tales were justified, though they didn’t meet any quick women. We were permitted to wander the grounds of the palace at will. We tried to talk with the fine folk, who were friendly enough, but few knew our language well enough to exchange more than a handful of words. We gathered that Herakul was in training with others to dance with the bulls, whatever that meant. We agreed that if anyone could dance with bulls, it would be Herakul. Pasifa came around. She and I talked and walked on the terraces of the fine palace. It was peaceful place. But she told tales of gigantic sea waves that had swept away earlier palaces that had stood right here completely away, and earthquakes that had knocked down walls and toppled columns. She said it was the bulls of the goddess, stomping deep in the earth where they lived. The Minos, their king, was in one of those caves, praying at length to the goddess to guide him in this coming threat against the warlike eastern King. I knew the men would say the bull was Pozdaeon, the sea-god, who has the shape of a black bull as one of his many forms. I didn’t know what made the earthquake, but I know I had never yet seen a sea-bull. I thought that maybe the land was alive in own slow way, not connected to humans at all.But I kept me mouth shut, as usual.
“He is called Sharrukin, the Lu-Gal of Aggadeh.”
“Lu-Gal? What that’s that?”
“It means Big Man in their language. None speak this tongue here, though our traders who sail to far end of the east sea know a bit of it. You have seen the fine bronze bowls and swords we make?’
I had indeed seen the elegant workmanship of their metallurgists.
“The cooper comes from Kypros, copper-land, some days sail to the east. It’s not far from the great lands beyond that stretch out forever in the sands. We need the copper to melt with our Tin to make this bronze. Ours is the finest. That’s why Sharrukin, or Sargon, as the Levantines call him, wants Karpatha to pay him tribute in bronze.” She walked silently for a while. “but that’s not all”, she said,” He considers himself a god and wishes to have all worship him and make sacrifice to him. We have our own way of life here, one that is very old and peaceful. We pray to the goddess to keep him away”
Good luck, I thought, but didn’t say. Men are greedy and full of war. If he wants this place, he’ll try to take it! That’s what I had seen.














10


The Karpathans were quite open and gentle, or so it seemed. They left us to wander on our word that we would not escape. The palace girls were free with their affections and quite pretty and well skilled in the arts of love. The men were content. I resisted their easy advances, since it had only been a few weeks since I had left the side of my Vila and our son. But I had no cause for complaint for the moment, especially as the west winds continued to blow too hard to let any boats out anyway, at least those headed west. Still, I felt a queasy uneasiness. I couldn’t get word of Herakul. All I was given were giggles and polite refusals to even talk one word about him.
But one lady of the palace was quite taken with me. She was a young, black-tressed girl of seventeen named Dalea, a handmaiden of Pasifa. One night she came, wrapped in a dark robe that covered most of her face, to my quarters and woke me. She put her finger to her lips to sing me to be silent and waved her other hand for me to follow her in the dimly lit hall. She led me through a maze of almost pitch-black tunnels and damp, narrow, stone- walled ways under the palace until I got quite confused. Without her to lead me through this warren of storerooms and dark doorways, I would have been lost trying to return, though I pride myself on my sense of direction.
After dozens of twists and turns and ups and downs, she turned, and in the darkness I could make out that she was silencing me sternly again, knotting her brows to show me how important it was that we not make a sound, and then she bent down and led me through a tiny square hole near the base of a wall and then on our hands and knees into a shallow, earth-floored crawl-space whose further end light filtered. It was barred with a low lattice-work through which we could peer without being seen. Though the light beyond the lattice was only that a few small torches and tapers, it seemed as bright as day after the dream-like darkness of the tunnels.
We seemed to be under some steps or a balcony of some sort; feet were scraping and moving right above our heads. The earth was dank and smelled like piss and cow dung. We peered through into a dim hall lit by low torches. A low wall bent around the oval-shaped open space beyond the lattice-work. The enclosed space was perhaps twenty paces across. Above the wall were three rows of benches, upon which sat two dozen or more cloaked figures. I figured them to be women by their size, though Karpathans are small in stature, and I could not be sure. Six priestesses, bare-bosomed as always, wearing the customary long, pleated flounces, twirled around the floor of the room, humming a repeating chant under their breath. In the center of the ring, there was a cleverly carved hollow wooden cow, whose hind-quarters were slightly raised. I nearly gasped out loud when I saw that there was a priestess nestled inside the open belly of this artificial cow. She held onto to a pair of short horns with her little painted hands, but her rear was shoved up into the open back of the wooden cow. Her legs were parted and she stood strongly with her feet planted in the earth of the ring. The dancers increased their tempo and volume. They spun and circled the offering cow-woman.
A gate swung open and two older priestesses, hauling strongly on ropes, dragged out of a doorway what looked like a half-man- half-bull, towards the painted cow. The huge, naked man, who staggered as if drunk, was wearing the mask-head of a great bull over his own head and was fully aroused. I knew at once it was Herakul. As the chanting grew in intensity, he was led to the wooden cow, placed his hands on the painted hindquarters and mounted the cow, and thus, the priestess inside. The chanting became trilling. The dancers banged rhythmically of tambourines. To one drunk or under the spell of a witch’s potion, it would have appeared that two strange god- animals coupled in great ecstasy. Both participants groaned with pleasure, the priestess crying out and Herakul roaring like the man-beast he appeared to be. The bull-man had his way with the offering until he was spent. Only then did the priestess release her tight grip on the short horns and slump forward. To my horror and surprise, I saw it was Pasifa. So the rumors were true in a sense: the queen did prefer animals to men. But this was the real truth of that story. I knew it could only be Herakul behind the mask. The bull-man seemed dazed, and I thought the witches must have given him a potion for endurance and madness.
Another priestess slipped into the offering cow, and soon the drunken man- Minotaur was aroused once again and the act was repeated. After this spectacle madness was repeated yet again, Dalea tugged on my arm and pulled me back from the lattice-work. We slithered on the cold earth back through the hole and into the darkness of the tunnels. She silently led us back through the labyrinth and to my chamber. When we were safely behind closed doors, she whispered tersely, “Don’t you see? You will be the next Minotaur. As each is used up, he is sacrificed to the Goddess. The priestesses have a magic elixir of the Egyptian lotus that makes the one they call the Minotaur mad with lust and able to perform until it kills him.” She looked down, coyly, but then serious. “Even if you don’t want me, for whatever reason, I still would see you escape that fate.”
“But why do you not follow this practice yourself?” I asked.
“I am from the land of the east called Kanaa. We do not follow the old ways of this goddess there. We worship Ea and Inanna and Astarte and Enlil. The bull sacrifice is sacred to Awa and Pozdaeon of the westerners. I am a slave who has lived freely enough in this land, but I fear for you.”
I took her hands in mine and thanked her, valuing her sacrifice for her love and her fearlessness of blind religion, and it ended up that night that we held each other, for I found her sweet and she swore that would not covet me, but only wanted to remember me. I thought of Vila, but a warrior far from home is used to such nights. Strangely, I was less than fully aroused after witnessing Herakul’s bull act, though as she was fully in the spirit, I did my best.
Before the dawn we wound our way back through the maze until we came again to the bull ring. I asked her to leave me by myself and she let her hands slip slowly and resignedly from mine and turned away, back into the maze. All was quiet. I found an open space in the lattice that lead out among the columned terraces, shining ghostly under the last of the pale moon. There was a light of a small fire in a grove beyond the buildings. I approached with stealth and saw Herakul, bloody, the bull head now removed, lying flat on his back, his long hair trailing in the blood of sacrifice over the edges of a huge, flat stone block in the center of a circle of gnarled, ancient trees. A fire burned low on a tripod. He looked to be dead. No one seemed to be there. I crept forward and touched him on the arm. To my surprise, he groaned and rolled his head to the side.
“Herakul! Scryonas!” I hissed. “Get up or die!”
He slowly sat up and began to mumble something, but I clapped my hand over his mouth and grabbed his shoulder. His eyes showed dull recognition.
“Come on, “I whispered, “to the harbor.”
I managed to get him to his feet. Though he was covered in blood, it didn’t seem to come from wounds of his; he seemed outwardly unharmed, except for the soreness caused by the combat of his bestial coupling. The blood must have been from animal sacrifices. I held him up with my shoulder and we hobbled off through the trees in the direction of the shore. It was chilly in the dawn and before too long he recovered enough of his senses to walk on his own. I told him what Dalea had said.
“By Perunas, Pelop! These witches and their brews!”
He held his manhood gingerly and grimaced. ” They scraped me raw. Worse, I can’t remember it!”
I had to laugh at my big friend’s sense of humor. Herakul could always make fun of himself, no matter what the circumstance.
It was fully light when we reached the port. We hid ourselves in some low bushes above the beach. There were a small boats tethered to the stone piers. No fishermen had been venturing out in the incessant wind. We made a dash for one that had a sail and oars, and quickly rowed out into the waving sea. The west wind was still blowing, though it was less this dawn it would rise to a gale later, to judge from the other days. I raised the sail and we were free.
I looked back at the low hill of Knossos, where the first light of the Karpathan sun god and his fiery chariot was tinting the wide stone terraces a rose color, and thanked Dalea with my heart. I hoped she wouldn’t suffer from our escape.
We passed a point and sailed on to the east as the seas rose around us. There was little shelter on this coast for many miles. It was tricky, but we were both good sailors and Herakul had recovered his senses and his strength, and I felt free, knowing that we should be able to make the last point and turn south into protected waters and even cross to the land of the lotus eaters in sand-land and then coast our way back west, eventually to Hedra and Vila and my son. Herakul had other plans, but was happy to go on adventuring with me for now.
He sat in the stern, manhandling the sweep, and mused. “They say there’s a land far beyond the pillars of the sea that mark the gate to the great ocean. They say it’s a green land, where the people paint themselves blue, and stones fly through the air by themselves.” He had a faraway look in his eyes.
“And do they have boars that walk up and eat out of your hand, and gods that have the sense to leave men alone with their scheming?” I laughed.
“Pelop, my little King, you had better watch angering the gods!” He bellowed at me. But I splashed him with a wavelet caught on the tip of and oar and laughed again.
“Men and women made the Gods, not the other way ’round, “I said.” Everywhere I go there are new gods, or people have given new names to things that seem should be godly. Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s from a god. It’s mostly an excuse for greed and murder; that’s what I see.”
“Well, little King Pelop, you may be right, but you’d better keep your mouth shut around people. They’ll make a fine quick sacrifice of you, unbeliever.”
“And claim the gods demanded it!”
Herakul spat for luck, letting three big gobs drip down his beard in the time-honored way.” I agree there many bad priests and priestesses, but still, can’t be too careful.”

We coasted on the gale from two whole days and nights, staying far from the rock-bound shore with its dangerous current-swept islets and barren cliffs. The hills inland were lower as we went further east. The big mountain of Karpatha to the west, which looks not unlike a giant man or recumbent god sleeping on his side if one imagines it, sank under the sky. We passed one small hill-palace that looked not unlike a miniature Knossos, but the winds swept us swiftly by. We passed point after stormy point.
There finally came at dawn on the third day a row of low headlands, three in number, which barred our way. North lay two small islands, rocky and bare like the mainland. We sailed between the straits, racing past whirlpools and mounds of rising water from the churning depths, and looked away south. The coastline on our right hand stretched away almost back to the west again. Beyond this last headland we came into the lee of the land and the relentless wind died down to a more manageable breeze. We gave ourselves a little cheer and swung the boat south. We passed a couple of fine small coves with a few strange trees growing inland among the tumbled rocks of the dry shore.
“Date-Palms, like Egypt “said Herakul, “I’ve eaten the sweet fruit and seen those branches at market in Tirina.”
We were very hungry and debated about landing but since the morning was fine and it felt good to sail for the moment without having to deal with the gale, we decided to go on a bit further. A large headland loomed up. We thought there must be a big beach beyond it. We came slowly up on the point, for we hadn’t lost all caution. What we saw made us drop the sail and row backwards as fast as we could.
There was indeed a long beach around the point, and a perfect harbor with lush palm groves. But pulled up on the beach and riding at anchor were dozens of long warships with black sails. We could hear the clamor of hundreds of warriors and sailors, the ring of metal on metal. We pulled in under a cliff, climbed partway up the face of it and onto a small ledge under the overhanging cliff still above us, and peered around the corner. The soldiers were of a kind I had never seen. They were dark-skinned, with tight curly beards. They wore cone-shaped leather helmets and carried long spears and strange back-curved bows. Some of them carried maces tipped with bronze stars. Many wore red cloaks. Their leaders were barking a harsh language I’d never heard before. Other men, naked or wearing only loin cloths, dragged cargoes on the beach sands. They were obviously slaves doing the bidding of their warlike masters.
A shower of pebbles began to rain down us from the cliffs and suddenly the voices were right above us on the cliff face, screaming like crows. We looked up and saw a group of warriors, some with drawn bows and some with long spears. They dropped and clambered down the rocks toward the little flat place on which we stood. We backed up, but therewas no place to run. They had cut us off from our boat. Without a word, Herakul leaped forward and dove into the clear, deep water and sank out of sight in the masses of underwater rocks and waving seaweed. The warriors were furious and came at me. I just put my hand up and said nothing. One warrior stepped up and hit me across the side of face with his mace. Jarred by the blow, I fell backward and the last thing I felt was my head slamming into the rocks.

I came out of a confusing dream. Slowly I realized my face was flat on hard sand. I felt my hands in an all-too familiar position: bound tightly behind my back, tied to my ankles, hobbled. I felt a wound burning on my forehead. The sun was beating down mercilessly on it. I tried to roll over off my stomach onto my side. Each time I nearly righted myself I toppled back over, getting more sand in my eyes and nostrils. Flies buzzed around my head wound and my eyes. I desperately needed a drink of water. My eyes began to focus in the brilliant light and saw that there was a man, an Achaean to look at him, sitting cross legged a few feet away from me. He was wearing a rag of a once-fine tunic. His beard was turning gray and he wore an eye patch. He was smiling, like he had won a wager and was gloating.
“He’s alive, “he said to someone I couldn’t see, “He’s moving again. I told you.”
I couldn’t manage speech yet. The man leaned slightly towards me and whispered, “Let me give you a hint, my friend, “he glanced around to make sure he wasn’t spotted speaking to me, “Don’t let on you’re hurt. Don’t yell or make bad faces. You must act noble.” He paused, and then stuck out his hand.
”Or you’ll get this!” he whispered.
His little finger was a warped stump. “But that’s not the worst of it. Who needs a little finger? If you cry out when they cut that off, this is what you’ll get!”
And with that he lifted his eye patch to reveal a ragged, pus-dripping, red slit, raw skin and scabs.” I keep my mouth shut now, lad.” He poked at me with his bony fingers.
The he spoke again, quietly but with contempt in his voice. ”You don’t know me, But I know who you are; yes!” he almost spat it out. “You sacked us at Kerkryon. My kin died there. Did you enjoy the booty? My sister, only fourteen summers, was taken! Did you enjoy her?” he glowered at me.
“War is war, “I muttered, “I took no women except the queen, who came with me by choice.”
“After you had killed her King with your long bow, Pelop the Archer. War is war and shit is shit. Well, your fame and royalty won’t mean much to these fine warriors. To them, we are just dogs, pigs, rats, worse than beasts. They are Akkadians. They live in a vast city in the land of the great rivers, far beyond Kanaa and Hattu and Egypt itself. The Ziggurat of Enlil is as tall as mountain! This is the fleet of the Lu-Gal-Banda, the God on Earth, Sargon of Akkad. .” He slammed his hand flat down into the sand. Then he went on, more calmly.” You will be judged by your worth, by what you can do. If you can really fight, really build, maybe they’ll let you live, though they’ll cut off your hand if you steal a crust of bread or a look at their women – and their women are beauties, let me tell you! Truly, we men of these regions can’t do much compared to these city-dwellers of Sumer. Their Kingdoms go back two thousand years, to the time of the great flood of Utu-Napishtm! Back to the great lawgivers and Gilgamesh himself.”
“And what do you do that they keep you alive? “ I said, craning my neck to look him in the eye.
“Me? I sing tales of the old ones in their language – in many languages. The Empire of Sargon has many peoples in it. It doesn’t keep them from cutting me down to size, piece by piece!” Now he laughed at the irony.
There were dozens of other captives and slaves, most in rags and injured in some way or another. We were just under the edge of the great palm trees, but the hot sun was still beating down on us. Finally a guard came and cut loose my bonds and shouted something at me. I squinted up at the man, who was silhouetted by the blazing sun. I didn’t know what he was saying, though it didn’t sound good. My eye-patched friend spoke up.
“He says for you to get up and go with him.” My friend spoke to the guard, who grunted back. “I’m coming too, to translate.”
I crabbed with my tight legs through the hot sand to a black tent that was open to the north, away from the sun. The flaps were up on the corners, letting a cooling breeze blow through. Three curly-bearded men sat on low cushions .They were smoking something in a curious device made of a large bowl with a narrow opening at the top. Long reeds stuck in the opening and smoke came through them. The vessel made a bubbling sound like water in a brook. The three men eyed us coldly. Through my interpreter the one on the right asked me who I was, and who my companion was, the one who had swum away.
I saw no advantage in lying, and couldn’t have figured out a lie that would have worked in any case, so I told him my name and who I was. I did mention that my companion was a servant at arms, one Scryonas of Makedoi, a man who was a capable warrior.
“And you, little man, what are your talents?” Said the man in the middle. He had a most imposing beard with luxurious curls. His hair was black, framing his shining, oiled olive skin, and it was bound and plaited as well as was his beard. His eyes were dark and penetrating, but unfathomable, like a falcon’s. His eyebrows almost met above his long hooked nose. His presence was commanding; ruthless and condescending, but not without humor.
“I a passing shot with a bow, “I said. My new friend, who had introduced himself to the men as Anarchos of Messene, told them in their language.
“We’ll see,” said the falcon warrior.
He stood and we followed as he walked out on the beach. He had a bow brought, one of the recurve bows. I had never tried that kind, but I felt I could find the shot if I was given a chance. I held the bow lightly in my hands, feeling its balance. The arrows we long and true, with good feathers. The point was a fine flint. He turned to his guards, who carried the same bows, arrows already nocked.” Shoot him if he makes a move.” I couldn’t understand the words, but the meaning was obvious.
I looked at him as if to say, what target?
He gazed down the beach. There was an older man, no doubt a slave, carrying a bundle on his head. The weight made him hunch over. Even at a hundred paces anyone could see he was struggling. The man barked an order and smiled at me.
I glanced at Anarchos, who whispered, “kill that one!”
“What’s in the bundle?” I said quietly as I raised the bow.
“Only the gods know,” answered Anarchos.
I drew, took quick aim as always, and let the arrow fly. It sped in the familiar low arch and went halfway through the bundle, knocking it off the old man’s shoulders in the process. The old man fell and scrambled to his knees, unsure of what had happened.
I turned to look at Falcon Warrior and smiled. “I missed.” I said.
He was glowering, but without looking at me he growled out another order in his guttural language, all full of achs and haws.
Anarchos said, “Shoot that bird.” A gull wheeled about the surf line, dipping and gliding, skimming the water, rising up and then diving. I made my play and the gull suddenly spun sideways and tried to fly away, but its wing had my arrow sticking through it. My second arrow severed its neck and the bird fell into the shallow waves. Several warriors had gathered around as this was happening and some rattled their polished metal wrist-guards on their shields in approval. Falcon Man looked at me, shrugged, and then turned quickly away and made a hand sign of dismissal.
The slave camp acknowledged me with sideways glances of approval when I returned to my place at the edge of the palm trees, and Anarchos was almost giddy from this display of my shooting talent, whispering excitedly of my shots to the slaves who had not seen the brief test of my skill. They tittered among themselves in a half-dozen dialects, pointing at me and gesturing with signs the meanings of which could only guess at. I off-handedly cautioned them about getting too high-spirited. We were, after all, simply war captives with no current way to escape. When the sun was setting, I was summoned along with Anarchos back to the tent, where this time, there was only Falcon Man, still puffing on his bubble-pipe. He offered a reed to me. I had never smoked anything before; it’s not the custom where I’ve come from. It produced a heady sensation at first, like strong wine. He spoke at length, in a measured way, not as commanding as earlier, yet still as a king would speak to a subject. Then he settled down in his cushion and puffed.
Anarchos said, “This is Lord Lipit-Sin of the great city of Lagash on Ea’s River. He is a general of the Living God on the Earth Sargon of Akkad. Sargon is the most powerful of all the kings of the all the long lists. Under his banners, all of Sumer and the surrounding lands and peoples, limitless in number, have been brought together in a mighty empire. Sargon is yet young and wishes to spend his life on earth conquering his enemies and bringing all the people of the known world under his benevolent wings and stewardship, so they might serve the Great God Ea. Lord Lipit-Sin will let you live and bring you to serve the Lu-Gal-Banda Sargon. In any case, you are his captive and must serve. But you could achieve such honor such as a barbarian can attain.” Anarchos added quietly, “This is unusual,” and arched his one remaining eyebrow.
Lipit-Sin opened his eyes and launched into another, though shorter ramble. Anarchos waited until he was done and then said, “The Lu-gal has decided to make war on the Pharaoh and his lands, in order to cast down the false gods of Egypt and honor Ea, Enlil, Inanna and the other true gods of the land between the Rivers.”
Lipit Sin beamed munificently.
I had the wit to nod and bow at this news. I thanked him for his kindness, carefully not saying I wished to take on this role. Lipit-Sin stared at me. I couldn’t judge his face. He waved me away and the audience was concluded and the guards took me and Anarchos back to the slave camp. It was growing dark in the shadows of the thick, clustered palms. There were guards around small fires at intervals around the slave camp; a fire here, a fire there, but the camp extended back into the palm grove for a ways. I lay and waited until the last light had faded from the cloudless sky and all was as still as it would be, and then I began crawling toward the deeper darkness on the thickest part of the grove. I slid by measures, a foot further, a yard, and then I would lie still and wait. The other captives and slaves were huddled in their rags in clots of two or three or four in the gloom. They scarcely acknowledged my slow passing. At last I made it beyond the last of the guards. Ahead were tangled thickets of thorn bushes and who knew what else. I figured I had a chance to out run the armored guards in the dark if I kept my wits about me. Once I was free I would run deep into the hills. I pictured Vila and Aon waiting for me back home. I got set to get on all fours and slip into the bushes.
Suddenly there was a loud crashing and crunching of the trees and bushes right in front of me. I heard something roaring like a wild beast that has been trapped. There were many voices as well; harsh cries in the foreign tongue of Lipit-Sin and the others. Something or someone, I fancied it to be akin to one of the hill-boars of Hedra, broke through the wall of bushes right before me, and I scrambled to the side, trying not to get caught in the melee. It was a huge person, who got to his feet and spun around. I found myself looking right up in the palest starlight at the face of Herakul, who also saw me in the same moment. Herakul beamed.
“I found you! I’ve come to rescue you!” Just then, a large troop of spearmen emerged from the darkness, ringing us in.
“A good rescue.” I said.