The Warrior, page 13
part #3 of Orestes Series
I duly went with him to slather virgin olive oil onto the dead oak’s trunk, honoring the god who had sent the sign, and Atreus who had witnessed it. “Was Grandfather a pious man?”
Menelaus wiped his oily-slick fingers on the cloth he had brought. “There are those who say otherwise, that Atreus was hard, cruel, and let his jealous rage get the better of him, but he never neglected the gods, never profaned the laws, except that one time.” A pause. “And that, Orestes, was a moment of madness. All men have such moments, you see. It’s in our mortal nature.”
I had noticed time and again how Menelaus never mentioned the double curse on our house. Quite possibly, he chose not to dwell on its existence, as I had often tried without success to do. Perhaps, like Pylades, Elektra and others, he dismissed it altogether, preferring to believe that we were no more or less cutthroat than the other royal Hellene families who had feuded with and slaughtered each other over the succeeding generations.
I asked him to tell me about the heroes he had fought with. Achilles, Telamonian Ajax, Patroklos—all the great names who had left their bones on the windswept Trojan plain. “It seems the world has become much smaller,” I reflected, “without such giants in it.”
At this, he laughed scornfully. “Listen to you!” My face burned fiercely at his inexplicable mockery. “Do you really want to live cheek by jowl with heroes?” he demanded. “You’re a fool if you say yes. You never had to deal with Herakles’ unpredictable temper or Theseus’s piratical raids, or had to endure Achilles’ or Telamonian Ajax’s sulking fits. A man’s hubris grows with his name.”
Menelaus turned his head, jerking his chin toward the mountains fringing the western horizon. “How would you like to have Diomedes for a neighbor? Ah, not so fast! Think, Orestes. I know how sentimental you are about anything to do with your father, but there comes a time when you have to cast off your childhood illusions. Agamemnon and Diomedes were equals in age and experience, and they respected each other. But Diomedes would have trod all over you for your youth and inexperience, and you would have chafed over your wounded pride. Sooner or later, there would have been war between you.”
Smothering a retort, I glared away from him, and hard into the distance, toward the main house with its many outbuildings. Of course, Menelaus was right to point out that I never could have rested secure with Diomedes as my neighbor, yet his other comment, about casting aside my childish sentiments, stung.
After a moment it occurred to me that I was grinding my teeth. “I have no illusions about Father,” I admitted. “I know he was hard and cruel, but—”
“Oh, yes!” Menelaus exclaimed, too quickly and loudly. I clenched my jaw, grinding down once more. What was he afraid that I had been about to say? “We all have our moments, Orestes. You, me, your father, and grandfather. That’s what it is to be a king, to have to make hard choices, to have to be ruthless, even when your heart’s against it. A king has to have a tough skin, like a tortoise.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you that, though,” he continued, rambling, “because you’re old enough to know better. Clytaemnestra conjured a monster for you to believe in, but that wasn’t the Agamemnon I knew. Didn’t it ever occur to you from the letters he sent home that he owned a tender heart? He treated your mother well enough, and respected her for her no-nonsense manner and shrewd mind, even after she cuckolded him. Otherwise, he would have sent men to kill her.” Menelaus nodded vigorously, despite the doubtful look in his eyes. “Agamemnon always looked after me, you know, just as an elder brother ought to do. He helped me win my dear Helen, took up my quarrel when she was stolen, and watched over me on the Trojan plain. When I was wounded, he sent for his own physician, and nursed me back to health.” Had he forgotten how that same elder brother had also banished him from Argolis? “If he fell short sometimes, well, all men have their faults.”
Menelaus was an old man filled with regret, trying to whitewash his brother’s failings, and serve an account of Agamemnon the bards could sing about. That last quarrel under the smoking ruins of Troy clearly weighed upon him. At Father’s tomb, right there before the people, he had wept openly and shamelessly.
I was uncomfortable, very much so. My boyhood questions had been simple ones. I recalled asking Father once in a letter what he did, thought, and saw, who his friends were, how he fought. As a man, my questions had become more probing, even disturbing, because there was no one all-encompassing answer. Had Father not been killed, would we have borne each other’s company, and learned to love each other, or would I have rebelled, as Atreus and Thyestes had rebelled against Pelops? Asking Menelaus was useless; he would have deflected the question, told me that it no longer mattered, and insisted that Father would have been proud of my accomplishments.
Chapter Ten
Menelaus and I treated our visit to Argos like an ambush, for in a sense that was precisely what it was. An hour after dawn, on the fourth day since we had landed at Tiryns, we set out with an escort of five men and crossed the Argive plain.
Breakfast weighed uncomfortably in my gut. This was not my first or even second time dealing with old men in council, and on each occasion it had taken all my patience and cunning to hold my own. Of course, Menelaus would be there to lend his senior status and prestige, but what man or king relished clinging to his father-in-law’s greaves?
Nonetheless, I decided, having him accompany me was far better than going alone. Catching the Argive assembly unaware could only work to my advantage.
It was still early when we entered Argos, passing through the lower town where the vendors conducted their business in the agora. Since we traveled minus the usual fanfare, leaving behind the visible symbols of royalty, we had to beat back foot traffic and endure the curses of the foul-mouthed fishwives and foreign merchants whose wares we rejected. A few others recognized us, however, as we drove past the town’s sanctuary; they stared and pointed, and shook their heads in bewilderment.
Not that it mattered who knew me, or remembered Menelaus. If I had timed everything correctly, then the messenger I sent last night would have arrived near midnight, long after Cyanippus had retired. What a surprise awaited him and his councilors this morning!
The Larissa, the citadel mount, occupied a steep, conical hill above the town. Standing on the walls of the Larissa on a clear day like this meant enjoying a commanding view of all Argolis: the broad blue expense of the gulf with its ports and strongholds, the groves and horse pastures for which our people were famed, and the great highways which crisscrossed the land. The early Argive rulers had chosen the finest site for their citadel. What magnificent things Mycenae could accomplish with such a strategic prize! One day, I vowed, the Larissa of Argos and all within its vista would be mine.
In the deserted forecourt, a harried-looking steward scurried down from the aithousa to greet us. “King Orestes, allow me to escort you to a guest apartment where you may—”
I cut him short, “Is the assembly in session?” The steward’s pale countenance, plus the fact that the courtyard was empty and the great doors of the megaron were closed, told me enough.
“Yes, my lord,” he admitted, stammering, “but the king—the king will receive you after he and his—”
“Go within and announce us.”
The steward blinked haplessly. “My lord?”
No more words. “You heard us well enough the first time.” I ascended toward the aithousa. The sentries flanking the doors shifted their stance, and grounded their spears in anticipation. “Go within,” I told the steward, “and tell your master that King Orestes of Mycenae and his father-in-law, King Menelaus of Sparta, have come in response to his summons.”
Menelaus added his word to mine with a meaty shove that sent the steward stumbling. “Go on, man!”
The rattled steward permitted the guards to open the doors, and thus we entered the shadowy vestibule with its bright frescoes. He whispered a few words to the attendant stationed at the curtain; the man was a herald who, acknowledging us with a crisp nod, ducked into the main chamber to announce our arrival. His stentorian voice cut through the rumble of conversation. “My lords, Orestes Agamemnonides, king of Mycenae. Menelaus Atreides, king of Sparta.”
I relished the astonished hush the announcement elicited, especially the reedy voice cracking on Menelaus’s name. “King Menelaus, here, with the boy? Are you certain?”
The aforementioned redheaded king of Sparta turned to me, and mouthed, “Cyanippus.”
The herald admitted us into the megaron, where two dozen men crowded the stone benches along the frescoed walls. Smoke rose from the hearth, obscuring the daylight streaming through the flue. So this was the famous Argive assembly. Had I expected to enter the halls of Olympus? Cyanippus kept a megaron no larger or more splendid than my own!
“Welcome, esteemed lords!” Cylarabes hastened forward to greet us, arms outstretched like two great haunches of mutton. “King Menelaus, this is a most unexpected surprise. Had we only known you were coming...” He cast a suspicious glance in my direction.
Menelaus jostled the middle-aged, rotund warden of Tiryns, took him by the shoulders, and shook him fondly as an uncle with his favorite nephew; his double chin jiggled from the abuse. “How marvelous to see you again, Cylarabes! Where does the time go?”
An impatient clearing of the throat from the dais cut short the socializing. Cyanippus expected to be deferred to, and he demanded it now.
I found the Argive king the decrepit graybeard I had imagined him to be. Although he was actually Menelaus’s age, Cyanippus looked ten years older. His sagging skin was abundant with brown age splotches, and his eyes were dull. A few untidy wisps of gray hair clung to his skull. He wore a threadbare, fur-trimmed robe, despite the season and the closeness of the hall, and his only adornment was a gold seal stone too ponderous for the scrawny wrist he wore it upon.
Cyanippus stood with great effort, and much assistance from his valet, as his kinsman presented us. “King Menelaus,” he croaked, “we were not told you were coming.” There was no acknowledging nod or word for me at all. I had, after all, just embarrassed him before his councilors.
“And miss out on our son-in-law’s first visit to Argos?” Menelaus’s enthusiastic answer echoed around the space. “We’ve detained Orestes from his business long enough. So you and he discuss whatever it is you need to discuss, and don’t mind this old interloper.”
A single chair stood beside the hearth. I offered it to my father-in-law while a servant hastened to bring in another.
Menelaus made himself comfortable, and then, once again, thoroughly and obnoxiously congenial as he called out to councilors he recalled from earlier days. “Argurios, you old skinflint! How have you been since we last saw you in Lerna? Philandros, you rascal! Do my eyes deceive me, or have you gotten even fatter?” Laughter and good-natured catcalls erupted from the benches.
He subsided as the Argive king sat down again, to the creak of weathered joints and a pained sigh. “Cylarabes, bring the rhyton.” Cyanippus’s voice was weak and grating, like a ship’s keel crunching over pebbles. “Let us have the drink offering.”
His valet laid a fleece across the old man’s lap, while his heir brought the gold vessel in the shape of a bull’s head. Their movements stirred the air, which wafted toward me pregnant with the unmistakable reek of fetid breath, unwashed clothes, and dying flesh.
After we honored Father Zeus and the Two Ladies, Cyanippus got straight to business. “Orestes, it is considered poor manners to keep your elders waiting.” He sounded like a grandfather chastising his errant offspring, who added further insult by neglecting to use my royal title. “For almost seven months, we have urged you—nay, pleaded with you—to attend us here in Argos, yet you have found one reason after another to delay your coming.”
As though, like a subordinate, I owed him my presence. Mycenae does not answer to you, you decrepit fool. Menelaus remained silent beside me, waiting on my response, but I did not need him to leap to my defense. Cyanippus’s question was expected. Therefore, I had rehearsed my reply well in advance.
I stood, accepted the speaking staff an attendant brought me, and said, “Forgive us, but we had legitimate reasons to delay. The usual petitions and tallies awaited our attention, and then we were told by your agents that you were unwell. Alas, we received a message that you were still abed with ague when the Spartan ambassador arrived with King Menelaus’s invitation to attend him in Laconia. And then, as the festival of Plowistos came upon us, and we prepared to sail, we heard you were gravely stricken with pneumonia.”
“And so you went to Sparta.” Cyanippus fidgeted with the sheepskin, plucking loose bits of fleece which he rolled into tiny balls between his fingers, and toyed with before letting them drift to the floor at his feet. “With such important business left undone here in Argos, you decided to travel to Sparta, anyway.”
Had that fetid old fool not heard a single world I had just said? “King Menelaus is our father’s brother, and our senior kinsman.” I strove against an overwhelming urge to clench my teeth and shout that I did not need Argos’s permission to do anything. “Should we have refused his summons, then?”
Cyanippus’s mouth moved, soundlessly opening and closing; he resembled nothing less than a fish cast ashore. Saying no meant pardoning me, but losing face, while saying yes, chiding me for going to Sparta, meant insulting my father-in-law.
“King Orestes,” Cylarabes interjected, claiming the speaking staff, “you might have delayed a day or two, surely. It was but a momentary courtesy we desired, the business of a single—”
Menelaus stood, and, against protocol, snatched the rod from his hand. “Sit down, young man—and shame on you for advocating that young Orestes should have disobeyed his own kinsman! We urged him to make haste in order to attend a family wedding, or had you not heard that he’s taken our daughter to wife, and has been enjoying the pleasures of the marriage bed?” He shook the speaker’s rod first at Cylarabes, then at the king glowering at him from the dais. “We refuse to believe the lords of Argos are so dried up and flaccid nowadays that they can’t remember what it’s like to drown in the presence of a beautiful woman.”
His comment elicited a loud, ironic snort from the farthest benches. Menelaus growled, and looked around for the offending dissenter, but whoever had insulted him, abject coward he was, remained anonymous.
“Congratulations, then, King Orestes, on your recent nuptials.” I recognized Melandros, the ambassador who had visited me in Phocis on my eighteenth name day, seated on the right-hand bench. Others echoed the sentiment, with varying degrees of sincerity. I doubted the Argives as a whole regarded a Mycenaean-Spartan alliance as good news.
I inclined my head, acknowledging them. “Indeed. We could not very well neglect our new bride and her father, who is our most honored guest, without insulting them.” Menelaus handed the rod to me before resuming his seat. “But let us set all quibbling aside, and deal with each other in good faith.”
Cyanippus grunted his displeasure at that last remark. I addressed him directly. “King of Argos, what matter is so urgent that you could not entrust it to your envoys? We would have gladly received you as our esteemed guest, had you been able to travel. This past winter we even redecorated our palace, in order to make it more fit for company, in the hope that you or some other distinguished visitor would grace it with your presence.”
But Cyanippus was not in a tolerant mood. “We prefer to conduct our business face-to-face, young Orestes, and without insolence.” As he appraised me, I noticed he did not squint like his cousin. I knew his game. He wanted a good, long look at the matricide, the madman who was his nearest neighbor. “We do not care for the unrest Mycenae has spawned these last ten years, and would take steps to secure peace in our realm.”
Ten years was a blatant exaggeration, which he must have known. “Tell us, Cyanippus—” If he could omit my formal titles, then I could do likewise. “Have Mycenaeans raided your farmsteads these in last two years? Have they captured or violated your daughters, or infringed upon your lands?” The Argive king did not respond, only stared straight ahead, his face a mask of utter distaste. But his opinion alone did not matter; the concordant murmurs and mumbles from the benches carried more weight. “We have kept order in the realm.”
“Prince Pylades has kept order, you mean,” he harshly corrected. “You, Orestes, have not done much of anything.”
“There, now!” Menelaus rose, addressed the assembly while dispensing altogether with the speaking rod—a clear message that a king of his standing did not require such symbols. “Do you honestly think we would join our only daughter, who brings as her dowry the rich lands of Laconia, to the king of Mycenae if we did not believe he could hold her domains and his, and maintain order?”
“Do you take us for a fool, Menelaus?” Cyanippus brushed the air with a dismissive gesture. “It’s common knowledge that you’ve been planning this union for thirty years—you and Agamemnon, joining Mycenae and Sparta through your offspring, their issue reigning over the entire Peloponnese, swallowing Argos, plowing her under with your bloodline.” Spittle flew from his lips. “Old Pelops would have been delighted.”
“King Diomedes was our friend and ally!” Menelaus retorted.
“He was a Mycenaean vassal!” Had he the breath, Cyanippus would have bellowed. As it was, those three mere words set him to coughing and sputtering. “A mere p-pawn.”
Standing, I brandished the ivory rod. “Peace!” Menelaus subsided enough to reclaim his seat. Cyanippus needed a moment to regain his breath, and wipe his mouth with a stained linen cloth. “Esteemed lords,” I began, “let us not argue about this. You have our word that we will not raid your cattle unless you raid ours first, or seize your daughters, or infringe upon your lands. We keep our oaths.”
