Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) Read Online Free

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    Then a band of Libúwan mercenaries had deserted their fortress post in the Mízriyan delta, raiding the towns they were meant to guard. They carried Diwoméde off into the western desert, along with other goods that they fancied had some value – jars of imported wine and perfumed oil, jewelry of heavy gold and precious stones, cattle, horses, women who knew how to weave linen cloth. He marched alongside donkeys and ox-carts through semi-arid grazing lands and barren deserts, from one oasis to another. The white kilts of Mízriya gave way to narrow loincloths. Woolen wigs and shaved chins were replaced by pointed beards and a long braid at each man’s temple. These Libúwans had little more use for lame slaves than his former masters and Diwoméde expected to be abandoned at any moment. It seemed it would be his fate to die in this trackless, arid wilderness, his body unburied, his soul unwept.
    But then they came to the village ruled by the maas, a man who had served in the Mízriyan army in his youth. Here, a month’s journey from the great river, this Libuwan had built a Mízriyan house, dressing in Mízriyan style, even taking a Mízriyan name. This Satmarítu was intrigued to hear about the Ak’ayan campaign in Mízriya from this odd-looking captive. On a whim, he bought Diwoméde, pleased to have one of the notorious sea people in his household. Grinning broadly, the maas paraded his new acquisition about the settlement by the sea, urging Diwoméde to sing fragments of the great epic songs of Ak’áyan heroes. Returning home finally, the big man brought the slave into the courtyard of his house, showing off his prize to his wife and youngest daughter. The older woman said nothing about the purchase, but she was clearly displeased. Dazed, exhausted, Diwoméde hardly knew how to behave or how to feel about his new home.
    Then the daughter of the maas stood before him. With her bright, laughing eyes, Náfriti smiled. In that moment, he had had a sudden vision of an easy captivity, of lying with this young woman with the gleaming hair and the coppery skin. If she desired him, as her smile seemed to suggest, he would pass the years in idleness, with plenty to eat and drink, his only duty to give her pleasure.
    But it had not been as easy as that. Náfriti was hardly more than a child, no more than sixteen, and, like many girls her age, prone to smile at anything. She was not nearly as taken with him as he had imagined, either. He was merely a toy that she enjoyed playing with on occasion, a source of mild amusement to be discarded the moment something of greater interest came along. She only allowed him to lie with her one time. “So,” she said blandly, afterward, “that is what it is like to have an uncircumcised man. I always wondered.” With that, she sent him away to scrub the floor.
    More often, she called upon him to sing a tale of his native Ak’áiwiya while the maas entertained guess. Then, to impress their visitors, Náfriti would demand that Mirurí punish him for some trifling misstep that he made inadvertently made, earlier in the day. Her smile, Diwoméde soon learned, meant only that her thoughts amused her. Those thoughts might as easily mean pain for him as pleasure.
    Satmarítu was as capricious as his child, overlooking outright defiance one moment, the next ordering many blows of Mirurí’s rod for spilling a few drops of beer purely by accident. The headman had determined to rid himself of Diwoméde on just such a whim. Diwoméde had tripped and dropped a tray of figs that he was carrying, falling into Náfriti’s startled lap. She laughed with great hilarity at the mishap. Even her usually dour mother found the incident highly entertaining. But Satmarítu leapt to his feet in outraged fury and administered twenty heavy blows with the shepherd’s flail that he always carried to betoken his high rank. As soon as Náfriti went to bed that evening, the maas gave the order that