Lord, 'dapa's going on thirty now, Marian thought with a sudden shock. One reason she'd resisted the younger woman's determined attempts at seduction back on the Island those first few months had been the difference in their ages.
Well, nobody can accuse me of cradle-robbing anymore.
"Are you happy about what's changed?" the black woman asked.
Swindapa turned her head and smiled. "Oh, mostly, bin'-HOtse-khwon," she said, and nodded toward the shore. "Some of the Earth Folk grumble, not most. Who'd watch their children die, when they didn't have to? Half did, in the old days. And we have peace, at least in our own land."
"Mmmmm-hmmm, I've heard complaints about everything being done the Eagle People way."
"Bread together," Swindapa said, and at her raised brows went on: "Haven't I told you that saying? Well, you take flour and water and yeast-none of them rules the others, and together they make the bread. Together we're making something new, and the Fiernan Bohulugi are the yeast, I think."
If we win this war, Marian thought; and knew from the shadow in the other's eyes that she had seen that thought, too.
"Odikweos, my friend, it is good to see you," Isketerol said.
His part in the autumn rites was done for now, with the Sacred Wedding. He had bathed, dressed himself in a saffron-yellow tunic trimmed with purple dye of Ugarit, thought carefully and consulted a few advisers. He clasped hands with the other man in the Amurrukan fashion that Walker had made common in Great Achaea, then received a kiss on the cheek as from a near equal; the other man was a ruler himself, after all, if also a vassal of the King of Men in Mycenae. This was not the first time he'd come to Tartessos as envoy and negotiator.
"You are well, and your women and children, your flocks and fields, all those beneath your rooftree?"
They exchanged the necessary courtesies, while outside bonfires and torches and kerosene streetlamps made the streets nearly as bright as day for the festival that would continue for three days and nights. Here in the upper chamber the lamps were also bright, bringing out the murals of dolphins and squid and bright birds that rioted in crimson and umber and blue against the green background. That was a subtle compliment to the Achaean underking, for artists from Mycenae had made them, sent with many other craftsmen as part of the alliance between Walker and his blood brother. The ebony table with its inlay of ivory and faience had been made in Pi-Ramses beside the Nile; it showed that Tartessians had long fared widely. Besides native dishes of tunny baked with goat-cheese and squid fried in garlic-laden olive oil, the golden dishes bore chickens on spits, roast potatoes, salads that included such exotics as tomatoes and avocados; there was chocolate cake for dessert. The foreign delicacies from west over the River Ocean were a reminder that like Great Achaea, Tartessos also commanded the New Learning. The air smelled of the good food, of fresh bread, wine, perfumed resin that sent tendrils up from worked-bronze stands, and of the jasmine that grew in stone troughs by the windows. Cool evening air bore a reminder that summer was past and awoke appetite.
The Greek poured wine-they dined without servants within earshot, for their talk was of statecraft-and added water to his cup. Isketerol winced slightly; that was no way to treat a fine mountain vintage.
Oh, well, to each land its customs.
"That was a fine sacrifice you made," Odikweos said, smiling and showing strong white teeth.
He was no taller than the Iberian King and of much the same years, his hair black with reddish glints and his eyes hazel, but more broad-built, his arms and legs thick with knotted muscle, battle scars running white under heavy body hair.
"The King is the land," he went on. "We have a similar rite to Gamater on Ithaka."
Isketerol nodded noncommittally; he knew Achaeans tended to assume that any foreign deity they met must be much the same as the one of theirs He or She resembled. Himself, he felt that was… what was the Achaean word? Hubris?
"The Gods send luck," he said. "It's up to us to seize it." They both poured a small libation into bowls left on the floor for that purpose and the King continued: "In the time of my grandfather's grandfather, legend has it that if the King could not raise a stand to plow the Lady's Lady, she sacrificed him there and then to bring the rain-spilling his blood rather than his man-seed in offering," he said. "That was a favorite jest of the Jester."
Isketerol nodded to a grinning clay statue of the Jester at the foot of the table and tossed a pinch of sweet-smelling resin onto the coals that smoldered in a bowl before it, giving the Lady's favorite son His due. The smoke rose in a blue coil, hiding the disquieting smile. As the saying went, the Jester slew men as boys threw stones at frogs, for sport… but frogs and men both died in earnest.
Odikweos shuddered. "The thought alone would be enough to make a prick of bronze go limp!"
Isketerol chuckled. "And in ages before that, the King was always sacrificed for the autumn rains; some of the inland villages still give the fields a man every year."
"I've seen much like that in Sicily, after we brought it under Great Achaea and I was made viceroy," Odikweos said.
Isketerol nodded; he'd watched that conquest carefully seven years ago, since Sicily was half the distance across the Middle Sea from the Achaean lands to Tartessos. He'd been greatly shocked at how little time it took the Achaeans under Walker to overrun the huge island, and a little shocked at the methods William used to pacify it; the Eagle People, the Amurrukan of Nantucket, had struck him as a soft lot, in the months he'd lived among them. But William was a hard man, and no mistake…
He plunged his fork into the tunny, savoring a mouthful. "Years ago, when William and I made war in the White Isle, I remember pledging gold to the gods for a taste of tunny with cheese, or olives, or a salad… or anything besides boiled meat and black bread," he said.
His face grew grave. "Now we make war again, and against the same foe-Nantucket."
"May the gods grant a better outcome this time, for Tartessos and Great Achaea," the Greek said, and poured another libation. "Nantucket stands between both of our realms and the desires of our hearts."
Isketerol joined him in the gesture of sacrifice-it could not hurt-and waited in silence. Back then he'd been a mere merchant and of a house richer in honor than goods or power, adventuring in the northlands in hope of profit. It was there he'd met William…
"My High King has heard of the repulse of your attack on
Nantucket," Odikweos said gravely. "He grieves with his blood brother."
Isketerol nodded. And I can believe as much of that as I wish, he thought. He and the High Wannax had been allies, blood brothers, and friends of a sort for a good ten years now, since they met on Alba. That didn't mean either trusted the other overmuch. After all, Walker had begun his climb to power by betraying his superiors and his oaths to them…
"How will the High Wannax show his grief?" Isketerol asked pointedly. "I could use more boring machines, and help with the converter to make steel. If the Islanders attack, I will need better artillery."
He glowered a little at that; it had been his spies in Nantucket who told him of the manganese that was necessary if the steel was to be good and not a spongy mass of air-holes, not his blood brother in Mycenae.
Back on Nantucket William had bought his help with promise of the great ship Yare and half its cargo of treasures-books and tools and machinery that the Islanders had put aboard to establish a base of their own in Alba. He'd helped William to pirate it; stood at his side while he conquered a kingdom in Alba with it; stayed at his side when the Nantucketers broke him, and carried his fugitive band to Greece. At first it seemed that Isketerol had had the better of the deal. Walker had helped put him on the throne of Tartessos with his gunpowder bombs and those first few cannon they'd cast in Alba, and the deadly Garand rifle. He'd made no dispute over division of the cargo. There Isketerol was. King of his native city; and William only a foreign mercenary at Agamemnon's court, leader of nothing but his little band of Islander renegades and Alban warriors. It was only in the years that followed that he realized how much knowledge was not in the books he'd learned to read, but in the heads of that score of men… not only skills, but a universe of wisdom that enabled them to understand things in the books which Isketerol must puzzle out by himself.