The Warrior, page 17
part #3 of Orestes Series
The merchant nodded. “Indeed, and good King Nestor’s sent his youngest daughter to marry the prince.”
Interesting. No doubt, Nestor had sent Pylian ships and spears along with his daughter, and capable administrators to maintain the peace in Ithaca and collect tribute, as his new son-in-law was in no state to accomplish either. I would not have wanted to be Telemachus at that moment, trading an absentee father for a domineering father-in-law.
*~*~*~*
Two days later, Kleitos found me exercising in the predawn cool of the palaestra. “My agent went into town the other night, and came back with a rather curious piece of news.” He sat down on the steps above the sand, beside my discarded sandals and tunic. “A man named Akelos has just taken up residence with the warden of Tiryns.”
I blocked Aglaos’s jab. “What does this have to do with us?”
“Rumor has it that he’s the son of Diomedes.”
Aglaos’s long, lean body twisted away from my left feint. “Diomedes had no sons.” Most kings had natural offspring, though. There must be some substance to the rumor, otherwise Kleitos would not have troubled me with it. Biting back a curse, I stepped away from my opponent, and turned toward Kleitos. “Who is this man’s mother?”
“Apparently, a woman who served the royal household at the beginning of the war, when Diomedes was still at home.” Kleitos scratched Hermes’ ears, when the dog, who had been sleeping in the shade, ambled over to him. “She’s dead, but her name, Meli, matches that of a servant woman who was at Argos at the right time. It’s a common name, though.”
I took the towel Eteokles handed me, and wiped my face before unwinding my himantes. “So the tale could be true.”
Kleitos’s long face betrayed his consternation; the news was not good. “Queen Aegialia is the only one who would have known for certain about her husband’s concubines and natural children, but she died a few years ago. Akelos is eighteen, exactly the right age to be Diomedes’ natural son, and people have commented on the resemblance between the two.”
Eteokles collected my himantes. I took the goat skin from among my clothing and, taking a swig of warm water, sat down beside Kleitos. “What is he doing with Cylarabes?” Hermes nudged my arm with his wet nose. I ruffled his ears, and let him lick my face.
“That’s the perplexing thing about all this,” he replied. “Cyanippus has acknowledged Akelos as the natural son of Diomedes, and ordered Cylarabes to foster him.”
“And Cylarabes made no objection?” Kleitos shook his head. I offered him the water skin, while Hermes plopped down between us. “What can those two possibly be about?” I stared at the sand, thinking. “A natural son has no claim to the throne, and Cyanippus already has an heir in Cylarabes, who certainly wouldn’t stand aside for a youth of uncertain parentage. Where did they find him, again?”
Kleitos had not told me, but now gave me what details he could. “All anyone knows for certain is that he was a sheepherder in the plain below Argos. One rumor going around says that he approached Cyanippus as a supplicant after his mother’s death, and gave him tokens of his royal lineage. Another says that Cylarabes sought him out, and brought him in secret to Cyanippus.” He swallowed water from the skin. “Whatever they want with him, whatever they’re grooming him for, it can’t be in your favor. Do you want him eliminated?”
My instincts said yes, the young man must be a threat, whilst my reason said no, there was no evidence. “I want to know what the Argives are plotting, then we’ll see whether or not it’s worth slitting his throat.”
To my disappointment, his agents and mine had little to report in that regard, because Cylarabes seemed to suspect that he was being watched. What I did learn, however, was that Akelos’s resemblance to Diomedes went no deeper than his fair coloring, build, and the contours of his square jaw. In all other respects, the youth behaved like the commoner he was. All attempts to educate him in the ways of the nobility accomplished nothing except to make him conceited and willful, to the point where Cylarabes kept him away from his family, and appeared to regret having welcomed the young man into his household.
Throughout the summer, my Argive guests fastidiously avoided the topic, deflecting my polite queries by complimenting my pregnant wife, and expressing curiosity about the construction on the citadel mount. “Does one hear the knock of chisels and mallets every day, all day?” Melandros had officially assumed Cylarabes’ duties as Argos’s Lord Ambassador to Mycenae. What a shame! I would have liked to personally take the warden of Tiryns to task over his failure to keep our agreement regarding the ship tolls.
A warm wind carried limestone dust everywhere; it powdered the great court below the aithousa where we strolled in the shade, and sifted into the ladies’ faces, ruining their cosmetics. Why Melandros and his companions felt it necessary to drag their wives along in this heat, I could not fathom. “Sadly, yes,” I answered. “My dear wife, poor thing, complains about the noise and filth.” Hermione threw me a withering look from where she stood apart with her women. “She prefers a quiet and orderly household.”
“Then what are you doing, to disturb her so?” Melandros was not an effective liar, giving too much away with his expressions, and thus could not completely manage to hide the disingenuous nature of his query.
“We are digging a new well,” I informed him, “and repairing Atreus’s old fortifications.”
“We heard it was a quite a deep well,” he observed. “Is Mycenae not already sufficiently watered?”
So the Argives knew about the cistern’s existence, yet that did not necessarily mean I had to satisfy their curiosity. “Of course, it is.” Damn him and his annoying questions, to which he already knew the answers. “We regret that we cannot take you around the various works, but the lovely ladies with you would find the work site unbearably filthy and noisy.” I directed a charming smile toward the bedizened and painted middle-aged women in Melandros’s train.
“Then you will accommodate us a bit later, perhaps, once the ladies retire?” Melandros made it clear that he was not going to yield on the matter.
His transparent insistence did not deserve a reply. “My lords, ladies, the afternoon is hot. Let us go indoors, honor the gods, and enjoy some refreshment.” I ushered the Argives into the megaron, where the servants had set out fresh fruit and cheese, and wine cooled overnight in tubs of water. “While we enjoy ourselves, you must tell us how your king is faring. Has his health improved in this warmer weather?”
Melandros and his retainers stayed overnight, but, despite two attempts to infiltrate the work site, learned to their disappointment that Tekton never relaxed his vigilance when involved in a project, and never got any closer to inspecting the cistern than they had before. When Melandros departed with his followers early the next morning, his chagrin was palpable. I smothered a chuckle, imagining him hours from now, fumbling and sweating while delivering the report Cyanippus would expect from him.
*~*~*~*
It was now time to deal with the lord of Nemea. I had Sama research what Nemea’s tribute was at the time of my father’s death, and measure it against the projected yields that my agents had reported, although I did not need the tallies to tell me that Chromios was a wealthy man. Nemea profited from the tolls imposed on itinerant merchants, on the numerous pilgrims who visited the oracle and sanctuary of Zeus, and on the many visitors who turned out every four years for the sacred Nemean Games.
On the day before the harvest was due to begin, I consulted the Mycenaean assembly to compose the formal demand for tribute and select an ambassador. Atymnios was too old, Kleitos too young, and Menon and Lykeus too abrasive for the task. Eurybatos was competent but not hard enough, should circumstances warrant it, and had no adult sons to assume his place should he fall in whatever conflict might ensue. That left Nearchos: level-headed, diplomatic, and shrewd, and the father of two grown sons whose loyalty was absolute.
Once the assembly confirmed him in his rank as Lord Ambassador to Nemea, Nearchos joined me at the hearth, where together we poured a libation of red wine and milk to Zeus and the Two Ladies, and he swore a grievous oath to do his duty and my will.
Next, Sama inscribed the letter we dictated to him. Chromios must deliver his payment before the festival of vines, and in the amount specified in the enclosed tallies. While I thanked him for not acknowledging the usurper Aegisthus, and for his loyal service in sending men and supplies to Troy, I made it clear that he had but a single chance to capitulate, intimating that defiance would earn him a fate that would serve as an example to other wayward vassals.
Chromios, of course, would refuse. I imagined him sitting on his throne in his megaron adorned with royal lions, staring goggle-eyed at Lord Ambassador Nearchos, and stammering his outrage at the gall of a twenty-two-year-old king—a mere boy!—demanding compliance from a prince more than twice his age.
I foresaw Nearchos trudging home with his tail between his legs, and with Chromios’s angry refusal in his wallet.
In fact, I was counting on it.
Chapter Thirteen
My firstborn son must have a name worthy of his magnificent pedigree, and it must be chosen before the birth. As much as I wished to humor Hermione’s desire to involve me in the quickening of our child, and to set aside my misgivings regarding oracles, I found the task cumbersome and unpleasant.
To name a child was to affix a magical label, a kind of destiny. Some names were humble, rooting their bearers to the earth or sea, or to the trades their forefathers had practiced, whilst other names were loftier, epithets a child must aspire to or grow into. And some names were so fraught with misfortune and dread that to call them up and attach them to an infant was a type of curse.
So I considered names that were as family heirlooms, and weighed them against each other.
Pleisthenes. Father had borne the name in his youth, before he began winning victories in battle, and decided he preferred the more regal flavor of Agamemnon. Hermione would not have it, though. “That was my youngest brother’s name,” she reminded me. “He was stolen, and never came home. Would you tempt the gods to curse our son with the same fate?”
“Of course not,” I said soothingly.
Tantalus. Mother’s first husband and firstborn son—the one whose brains Father had dashed against a wall—had been called that. So had my great-great-grandfather, a king of Lydia who had outraged his people by sacrificing his own child to feed to the gods.
Pelops. Again, no, because Hermione was convinced that our child would be born exactly as Priam’s son had predicted, with red hair, and not dark, as the name implied.
Hermione playfully refused to tell me what name she had selected in the event that the gods granted us a daughter. “That’s one of the female mysteries,” she said, kissing the tip of my nose. Her morning queasiness had abated, her waist noticeably thickened once the child quickened inside her womb, and her body excited the imagination. Her pale skin stretched tight over her womb, so perfectly round and egg-smooth. I liked how full and sensitive to the touch her breasts had become. What a fortunate infant our child would be, to be able to suckle on those pomegranate-red nipples!
Her increasing girth and the relentless heat, however, made her irritable. When she sought a couch on the roof, I forbade it. High summer often brought mountain thunderstorms, and who was to say that Zeus would not see her lying there, lush and lovely in her diaphanous linen draperies, and claim her as his own?
Moreover, she did not believe in the loveliness of her condition. “Stop smothering me!” She tried to shove me away, as we lay naked and perspiring beside each other in the bed. “I’m as ugly and clumsy as a beached pentekonter, and you know it!”
I kissed the fragrant valley between her breasts, where her women had anointed her skin with oil of lilies. Again, she tried to wriggle free. “It’s too hot, Orestes, and your beard tickles!”
Rolling away from her, I found a painted wooden fan on her night table, and wafted it over her. “Is that better, my sweltering queen?” Hermione brushed a damp ringlet from her face, and, closing her eyes, nodded. “Pentekonters are beautiful ships, whether they’re chocked on a beach or out on the open sea with their sails billowing in the breeze.”
Her eyes shot open at that outrageous statement, her pink lips parted, and she gathered herself to deliver a suitable retort.
“Ah!” I interjected. “Pithoi are also beautiful.” Hermione had begun comparing herself with the huge storage jars almost as soon as she starting showing. “There’s nothing more stupendous in a rich man’s house than a giant pithos, all painted and decorated.”
Hermione snorted at my wittiness, then hissed back a breath. “Pithoi aren’t kicked and confounded by their contents, though.”
“Is he kicking you?”
Her head moved in a brief nod. “He moves now and then, to remind me he’s there. Give it a month or two, the midwives tell me, and he’ll be tormenting me night and day. They say such early signs of strength and restlessness portend a healthy boy.”
A rumble of distant thunder caught my attention. Zeus must have overheard. “Father of the Gods,” I said, “let those words pass from my wife’s lips to Eleuthia’s ears.”
“A storm is coming,” Hermione murmured. “Now, it will be muggy as well as hot. Fan me again, would you?” I obliged her, if only to savor the sight of her nipples hardening in the sudden rush of cool air. “What should we send Chrysothemis and the baby?”
Word had arrived from Sparta that morning that Chrysothemis had borne a daughter, Thalaia. Yet I had no idea what gift would be suitable for a new mother and female infant. “You choose something.”
Hermione, eyes shut, nodded, and made a little noise in her throat as though she had expected me to say that. “She was hoping for a son,” she murmured. “Hmm, Alektryon is a nice name.”
I had to admit, it had a pleasing ring, as well as being the male version of Elektra, yet nevertheless, it did not fit a firstborn Atreid son. “Alektryon was a Perseid king. I would not have the Argives thinking back to those days, when they made demands on Mycenae.”
“You disagree with everything,” she complained. “At this rate, we’ll end up naming him Kouros.”
Boy. “That’s a dog’s name!”
Zeus rumbled outside, his thunder rolling through the citadel mount. I lowered the fan. Hermione muttered and tossed her head on the pillow. “The god doesn’t approve,” she commented.
Then, a boy’s name leapt into my head, as startling and abrupt as the lightning flashing outside the window. “Tisamenus,” I said.
Hermione’s eyes were open, blinking from the lightning flash. “What did you say?”
“I think the god just spoke to me.” Yes, it must be, for I would not have otherwise considered the name, which belonged to an ineffectual young Theban king. “Zeus offered the name Tisamenus for our son.”
Hermione lifted her head from the pillow. “But Tisamenus means Great Retribution.”
Nevertheless, I liked how the name rolled across my tongue, where before I would never have considered it. Was it my imagination, or was the night becoming hotter, and more humid? It seemed as though the god was in the chamber with us, holding his divine breath. “Zeus set it in my mind,” I repeated softly, wondering why that particular name.
*~*~*~*
Harvest brought great abundance. Elektra kept the strenuous, hours-long vigil with Mother Dia, while Hermione received the first sheaves. A jubilant shout erupted from the townspeople as their queen appeared under the scarlet, gold-fringed awning. How long had it been since Mycenae had had a pregnant queen to bestow the goddess’s blessings upon them? Hermione was a magnificent vision of fertility, her gem-studded apron spilling over her rounded belly, and her bodice open to the waist to reveal full breasts.
Mother. I clamped down on the sudden, unwelcome memory of her as the goddess-on-earth. Receiving the sheaves had been her last official act as queen, for on the day after the harvest celebrations, on that very morning...
I blinked my eyes, twitched my head to clear away the doleful thoughts, and focused harder on the woman before me, who was my wife, carrying my child, and not my dead mother. I saluted Hermione from my customary place above the Lion Gate. Hard to believe, but during their brief marriage that imbecile Neoptolemus had tried to refuse her the honor of receiving the sheaves. What was he thinking, begrudging the goddess-on-earth her duties?
The following afternoon, as the ladies of the court withdrew to make goddess cakes, sing the old chants, and dance with their queen, I feasted the noblemen in the megaron. Was it the heat that blunted my appetite, or the knowledge that tomorrow would mark the second anniversary of Mother’s death? Around me, courtiers laughed and talked, ate and drank their fill around the hearth where she had fallen. Did no one else remember?
I made no announcement to the court, for it was ill-omened to mention the murdered dead, but did not sleep that night. The nature of Mother’s death and my own guilt made a procession and memorial sacrifice impossible, yet in the sultry darkness found myself wondering what misfortune might visit the household should her shade go ignored.
At sunrise, I instructed my stewards to turn the morning petitioners away at the Lion Gate, and to postpone the day’s business until tomorrow. I refused the breakfast Eteokles brought, and when he asked why, explained, “I must fast to appease my dead mother’s ghost.”
From sunrise to dusk, wearing only a loincloth, I kept my vigil crouching upon the cult house threshold, where there was no shade.
Elektra’s criticism proved worse than the stifling heat. “Have you lost your mind?” she hissed. The crowd which had gathered to gawk at their king sitting half-naked in the dust now drank in the sight of my sister remonstrating with me. “A jar of wine and a wreath would have sufficed.”
Her linen gown reeked of incense; she had just come from propitiating the goddesses in the women’s sanctuary. Had she remembered to appease Mother’s ghost this day? Somehow, I doubted it. “Go attend your women’s work,” I muttered. “You are embarrassing me.”
