"Meaning they'll get worse, if you win," Isketerol said tightly. "So will mine, once you've broken your teeth on our defense." A pause, and he seemed to push away anger with an exhalation of breath. "The old King, the one I cast down and slew, he was my kinsman.
"Yes," he went on frankly, "I wanted the Throne for the glory and power and wealth. Yes, also to hand that down to my own sons and bloodline. But also, I struck for my people- for their glory and power, for the heritage of their sons, and the sons of their sons, that our tongue and Gods and customs would not go down into dust and be less than dust as I read on Nantucket all those years ago. Your books could not say if we even existed at all! Then I wept and raged at the Gods; yet later I came to see that this was the gift that the Gods had given me, a glimpse of a different course to be steered through the oceans of eternity. And since then I have worked and planned and fought to turn the helm thus. It was not to make my folk clients of yours that I struck that good old man down, that for years I have labored and shed blood when I might have rested in wealth and ease."
Alston nodded soberly. She understood that, well enough. Her thoughts went to ancestors of hers; and to the systems analysts of Bangalore, India, and the suit-wearing Parliamentary deputies of Taiwan, and here… Mmmm-hmmm, John Iraunanasson, for instance. You may find that you're destroying what you're trying to preserve, in the long run. King Isketerol. And that the only way you can fight us is to become us.
Since the Event she'd come to appreciate just how weird and wide and wonderful this ancient Earth was; it wasn't altogether pleasant to think of it being remade on a single pattern, no matter how dear and much-loved that pattern was. On the other hand, I've also learned damned well that all customs and ways-of-doing and thinking are not equal. Some are just flat-out better than others. Freedom was better than slavery; the Town Meeting was better than a God-King.
You couldn't expect Isketerol to look at it that way, of course. It was a dilemma without any easy solution; one for Heather and Lucy, and their children and great-grandchildren. And Isketerol's…
"So this war must continue, until you see that we are not to be bent to your will," Isketerol said soberly.
"You tried to bend us to yours," she pointed out.
"Of course," he said, with another flash of teeth, genuinely amused. "And I would have ruled Nantucket well-I know that honey catches more flies than vinegar. But it didn't work-I underestimated you. And I can learn a lesson as well as the next man, when it's shot at me out of a cannon. Can you?"
"Most of the lessons life teaches us are surprises," she replied. "Usually unpleasant ones."
Isketerol nodded, and paused for a moment: "You took many prisoners this spring. What is their fate?"
"Some asked us for sanctuary," she said.
The Iberian made a gesture that Swindapa murmured was acceptance and acknowledgment. Many of the officers of that force had been from the old ruling families that Isketerol distrusted, a sentiment they shared.
"The mercenaries took service with us, and we have sent them to our allies in Kar-Duniash and Hattusas. The rest are on Long Island; they live together, lightly guarded but working as they will to earn their keep. When the war is over, we will send them home; you'll find many of them have learned useful skills."
Alston paused. "We have a number of your wounded from the latest battle; we'll return the badly hurt, if you wish. Men with limbs gone, or broken bones, deep hurts in their flesh. That would mean extending the truce, though… say to sundown, day after tomorrow."
"Ah," Isketerol said shrewdly. "You do not expect this war to continue long, if you return men who will fight once more in a few months."
"No, I don't," Alston said frankly.
"But in any case, that is well-done," he said meditatively, and stood in thought for a moment. "We have some of yours, who washed ashore after the battle off Tartessos-we will return them to you when you hand over our hurt men. And for this war, I will fight according to your Eagle People laws of battle-prisoners to be treated gently." A grin. "I have found this makes opponents less likely to fight to the death, in any case."
"Good." Alston cocked an eyebrow. "You'll find that many of our notions are more practical than you might think."
A long pause, and he surprised her by offering his hand. "Sundown, day after tomorrow-fighting to start again when a black thread cannot be told from a white. The war must continue, it seems."
She took it, dry and strong in hers. "It seems it must. Sundown, day after tomorrow. And may God defend the right."
"You Amurrukan, you are… how do you say… weird."'
"I've often thought so," Alston agreed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
November, 10 A.E.-Walkeropolis, Kingdom of Great Achaea
October, 10 A.E.-Great River, southern Iberia
November, 10 A.E.-Walkeropolis, Kingdom of Great Achaea
November, 10 A.E.-Cadiz Base, southern Iberia
November, 10 A.E.-Great River, southern Iberia
November, 10 A.E.-West-central Anatolia
Odikweos's mansion was a mixture of Mycenaean tradition and Walker's innovations. Ian Arnstein thoroughly approved of some of those. There was central heating, natural hot air from a basement stove via clay pipes in the walls and floor; the kerosene lamps with their mirrored reflectors were a lot brighter than the twist of linen in olive oil that the locals had been using. And the bath suite-sure 'nuff shower stall, hot and cold plunges-was a vast improvement over sitting in a ceramic hip-bath and having bucketsful poured over your head. In fact it was all about as good as a bathhouse in Nantucket Town, and far better than anything he'd had since he left Ur Base. Flush toilets, too, and soap, and even a frayed soft reed that made acceptable toilet paper…
He turned down an offer of a massage with scented olive oil, accepted a clean Mycenaean tunic and kilt which he suspected a seamstress had just run up in his size. Then he sat down to a meal of garlicky grilled pork, salad, and french fried potatoes accompanied by watered wine in a room with big glass windows that overlooked the town. It was growing dark outside, sunset aggravated by thicker cloud cover.
I wonder why Odikweos is doing this, he thought. Walker had ordered him given comfortable prison quarters, not the quasi-sacred status of a guest. Not that I'm objecting. Achaean mores had altered, and swiftly, here in Walker's kingdom, but he didn't think they'd altered so much that Walker could just chop him now without a major confrontation with one of his most important supporters. But I do wonder why. He was still trying to figure that out when the servants showed him into the megaron, the great central hall.
The old traditions of the Achaean barons remained strong here. A log fire boomed and flickered in a big central hearth rimmed with blue limestone blocks, scenting the air with pine; but a copper smoke-hood stood over it. Four massive wooden pillars supported a second-story gallery and ran up to the roof, painted red and surrounded by racked bronze-headed spears. Huge figure-eight shields were clamped to the wall at intervals. Between them ran vivid native murals; one of a man in a plumed boar's-tusk helmet shaking a spear aloft as his chariot galloped into battle; another of a boar hunt; the third of a city under siege… but the siege included stylized cannon, and a balloon floating at the end of a tether.