Against the Tide of Years (13 page)

“Nothing so dark as a city at night,” he murmured.

Not even a forest before the rising of the moon. Nothing that stank quite so bad, either. Sometimes he was glad his own rocky fiefdom was too poor to support such a warren.

The narrow alleyway where they walked twisted so that the light of the burning pine knot didn’t travel far. High mud-brick walls rose on either side; this late at night few of the small windows set under flat roofs showed lamplight behind them. Only a scattering of stars glittered overhead, hidden by the high roofs—many of the buildings were enormous, three, even four stories tall, looming like black cliffs.

Voices now, men shouting in rage, and one shrilling scream of agony. He rubbed his beard.
It’s the High King’s business, to keep order in his stronghold,
he thought, looking up to the citadel of Mycenae on its hill above. Plenty of lamps glowing
there,
even at this hour.

“But perhaps we should take a look,” he said. “Follow me, and be careful.”

He drew the sword hung on a baldric across his body and shifted forward the round shield slung over his back, taking a firm grip on its central handhold. The sword glinted cold blue-gray in the torchlight; it was the new type,
steel
as it was called, straight and double-edged and nearly three feet long. The hilt was bound with silver wire and the ring-and-bar guard inlaid with gold, as befitted a royal man’s weapon—it had come as a gift from Agamemnon, part of the new wealth he’d found. Harder to put an edge on than a bronze sword, but sharper once you did, and much more durable.

The spearman closed up on his left, and the torchbearer fell a little behind, holding up the burning wood until their shadows passed huge and grotesque before them.

The alleyway gave onto an irregular open space perhaps two or three spear lengths in any direction, covered with worn cobbles; thuds and groans and clatterings echoed off the mud brick. The light here was a little better, and the torch had room to spread its flickering glow. Against the wall opposite two men fought four; the two had an injured friend down at their feet, and the four had a fifth man sitting on the ground behind them moaning and clutching his belly. The attackers all had shields; three fought with spears, the fourth with a nobleman’s bronze sword. The defenders . . . Odikweos’s brows rose under his headband. One of them was helmeted, dressed in a tunic of some strange rippling dark-gray stuff that reached to his knees, and carried a round shield marked with a wolfshead. A short, leaf-shaped sword flickered around the edge of it. His companion was in cloth, but he bore a sword that
curved,
long as a man’s leg, and he wielded it two-handed.

Rumors clicked together in the Achaean’s mind. Here was a chance to see all that his curiosity had desired.

“Gods condemn you, bastards!” he roared, running forward. “See how you like an even fight!”

The retainer beside him also called on the gods, although in a rather different tone. Odikweos met the attack of one dim figure head-on, ducking under a spearthrust, levering the other man’s shield aside with the edge of his own. That took a grunting twist of effort, but it left the man staggering and open. He ran the long steel sword through his opponent’s body, careful to strike below the ribs. There was a soft, clinging resistance, a bubbling scream as he wrenched the blade back and brought the shield up with desperate quickness.

His alertness was unnecessary for once. His retainer had taken the wounded attacker, a short underarm thrust through the gut. Now he braced one sandal on the sprattling form and stabbed downward with a force that crunched his spearpoint through the dying man’s neck and into the cobbles beneath. The strangers had moved forward promptly, blades flickering. The attacker with the bronze sword took to his heels while they were dealing with the last of his followers. The curved sword bit low and hamstrung that lone and luckless one, and the odd short sword rammed forward into his gut in an economical underarm stroke.

Odikweos lowered his own sword and waited, panting slightly. The dead added their bit to the sewer stink of the town.
Pity,
he thought, as the stomach-wounded attacker jerked and went still.
We might have made him talk.

“Odikweos son of Laertes,
wannax
of Ithaka among the Western Isles,” he said.

“Walker son of Edward,
hekwetos
to Agamemnon King of Men,” the other man said. He looked as if he recognized the underking’s name, somehow, even panting with effort and the pain of his wound. Odikweos swelled slightly with pride at that.

“My thanks,” he went on; not an Achaean phrasing, but the western lord caught the meaning.

Walkeearh,
he thought, shaping the word silently with his lips. This close, Odikweos could see more of the man, the one of whom he’d heard so much. His missing left eye was covered by a black leather patch and his brown hair held back with a strap of gold-chased doeskin; a very tall man, six feet or more, well built and strong-looking, and quick as well, from the way he stood . . . except that he kept a hand to his side, where a spreading stain darkened the fabric of his tunic.

“Since we’ve fought shield-locked, shall I bind your wound?” Odikweos asked.

Walkeearh shook his head. “We’re not far from my home, and it isn’t serious. Come and take hospitality of me, if you may.” He looked around. “We’ll have to get my man here back as well, he’s got a spearthrust through the leg.” Walkeearh’s hale retainer was binding it with a strip torn from a cloak.

“Indeed,” Odikweos nodded in approval. A lord must look to the needs of his men. “That’s not a matter of difficulty.”

He turned to the nearest door and slammed the pommel of his sword against the beechwood panels. “Open!” he roared. “Open, commoner—a kingly man commands you!” It was a large house; there would be a door or bedstead within, and men enough to carry it. “Open!”

There were. The Achaean walked beside Walkeearh up the hillside road and through the massive gate with its twin lions rearing above the lintel stone. Their bronze fangs shone above him, for there were many torches and numerous guards there. They exclaimed at Walkeearh’s wound, but passed him through at his bitten-off command. The house he led them to was a fine one, a hall and outbuildings; Odikweos’s own palace in the west was no better. He accepted that with only a slight pang of envy. Mycenae was rich in gold and power, Ithaka wealthy only in honor and the strength of her men.

He looked about keenly as they walked into the antechamber. It was brighter than he’d thought an inside room could be. Lamps were fixed to the walls, with mirrors of unbelievable brightness behind them—far brighter than burnished bronze, or even silver. The lamps were strange as well, with tops of some clear crystallike substance above them and wicks that burned with an odd bluish color and a fruity smell. The light made it easy to see the gear of the men who crowded around; their armor was tunics of small metal rings joined together. Odikweos smiled at the cleverness of it.

They were hustled into the main megaron-hall, which made his eyes widen. A great hood of sheet copper stood over the central hearth, with a pipe of copper running up the full two stories to the terra-cotta smoke-pipe in the ceiling . . . and he’d thought smoke-pipes were the last word in elegance. There was a cheery blaze on the big round hearth, but despite that, little or no smoke drifted up to haze under the painted rafters. More of the wonderful lamps were being turned on by the servants, giving fine light throughout the great room, shining on weapons racked around the pillars and doorways. There were chairs in plenty, more than you’d expect even in a great noble’s home, and fine hangings over them. Skilled slaves took his weapons and cloak and brought him heated wine with honey and a footstool. Another undid his sandal straps and wiped his feet clean.

Walkeearh swore as they lifted the tunic over his head, leaving him dressed only in his kilt. Odikweos looked at the wound with an experienced eye.
Not too bad.
A clean-edged gouge where the spearhead had plowed his side, perhaps touching a rib a little. It bled more freely without the wool of the tunic packing it, but it should heal if it didn’t mortify, which was always a risk even if you washed the cut with wine as he did—an old Shore Folk woman had taught him that trick. His earlier impression was confirmed as he watched muscles moving beneath Walkeearh’s skin; this was a fighting-man you’d be cautious of offending. From the scars, he’d lived through many a battle.

Two women with a flutter of attendants came down the staircase from the upper story of the house, straightening their indoor gowns. One was tall and blond with braids down her sides to her waist, well shaped but only passable of face. The other was . . .

Odikweos fought not to gasp in astonishment at the exotic loveliness. The other was short, with skin the color of fine amber and hair raven-dark. Above a tiny nose and impossibly high cheekbones her eyes
slanted,
with a fold at their outer tips. Who had ever seen the like?

And a wisewoman as well. She washed her hands in water and some sharp-smelling liquid that her attendants brought, examined the wound, then spoke in a sharp, nasal-sounding foreign language.

“Speak Achaean, Alice,” Walkeearh said. “We have a guest.”

“That needs some stitches,” she said, then bent to examine the warrior with the wounded leg. “I’ll have to debride this—that’ll take a while. Kylefra, Missora”—that to two young woman who looked alike enough to be sisters—“get him to the
infirmary,
and
prep
him,
stat
.”

Walkeearh stifled a gasp when she swabbed out his wound, then set his teeth and ignored it as she brought out a curved needle and thread and began
sewing
the wound together, as if it were cloth.

“Sit, be at ease,” he said tightly. “This is my captain of guards, Ohotolarix son of Telenthaur.” A big yellow-haired man, young but tough-looking. “And my wives Ekhnonpa”—the fair woman—“and Alice Hong. Ladies, here’s Odikweos son of Laertes, who probably saved my life tonight.”

Odikweos bowed his head politely. Ekhnonpa spoke to Ohotolarix in a strange, almost-familiar language, then thanked him in slow, accented Achaean.

Hong kept at her work.
Strange name,
he thought.
Is she human?
Perhaps she was a dryad, something of that sort—certainly this Walkeearh was otherwordly enough to wed an Otherworlder. When the wound was closed, she painted more of the clear liquid on it and then bandaged it, securing the pad with a roll of linen around her man’s chest and over a shoulder.

“Don’t strain it,” she said. “I’ll go look at Velararax now, after I touch up that ear of your friend’s.”

Odikweos made himself sit still as she came up beside him. “This is going to hurt a little,” she said.
No, human enough,
he thought; she smelled like a well-washed woman roused from her bed. The fingers touched his ear, and then something stung like liquid fire.

“Here, Lord Odikweos,” she said. “That will heal cleanly.”

When the women had left, a grave housekeeper brought basins of water to wash their hands and trays of food, bread and sliced meats, olives and dried figs. While she mixed the wine half-and-half with water and poured it into fine gold cups, Walkeearh shrugged into another tunic, moving cautiously.

“My thanks again,” he said. “The gods witness”—

He poured a libation, but—curiously—not on the floor. Instead he used a pottery bowl with a rush mat inside it. Courteous, Odikweos did the same; it was always best to honor a man’s household customs.

—“that I and mine are in your debt.”

“May we fight again side by side someday,” Odikweos said. That wasn’t unlikely, given the coming war. “Who were your foes? Men sent by some rival?”

Walker smiled. “I have enough of those,” he said.

“True, you’ve risen far among us in only one winter,” he replied. “Far and fast, for an outland man.” He looked around the curiously altered hall.

“And where one man rises, other men envy and hate,” Walkeearh said. Odikweos nodded; that went without saying. “You’re in Mycenae for the muster against Sicily?”

He tossed his head in affirmation. “My men and horses are camped outside the city,” he said. “We came by sea to Tiryns. I’ve a guest-friend here and sought his dwelling, but he has blood-kin sleeping like the ribs of a sheep on the floor of his hall, and I was leaving again to seek my tent.”

“Stay here,” Walkeearh said. “There’s room in plenty, despite the war.”

Odikweos nodded, smiling. That was just what he’d hoped. “I will take the hospitality you offer gratefully,” he said. Curious to see how this Walkeearh would react, he went on, “Although I’d be even gladder to be sleeping beside my own wife, at home. If this was a war against other Achaeans, I would have found some way to refuse the summons.”

Walkeearh smiled, an odd lopsided expression. “Pretending to be mad, perhaps?”

Odikweos laughed. “You have a godlike wit. Perhaps so, perhaps so. Well, there may be plunder in this war, at least.”

You had to be more careful when the hegemon called his vassals for aid against a foe or rebel, of course; dodging that call looked too much like rebellion itself. He had no desire to see the black hulls of a hundred hollow ships drawn up on the beach before his home.

The foreigner didn’t bluster about glory. Instead he nodded thoughtfully. “Spoken like a man of cunning mind,” he said. “When men who should be vassals of the same high king war with each other, the realm is weakened.”

Odikweos blinked; that hadn’t been exactly what he meant . . . although when you thought about it, the idea made some sense in an odd, twisty way. “Certainly the king of men won’t get much tribute from the dead,” he agreed. “And besieging a strong city—well, the arrow of far-shooting Paiwon Apollo rain down on such a camp.” There was always sickness when too men stayed in one spot for long.